Unfogging the Future
by PepperjackCandy
Summary: H/D Slash -- Harry performs a future-prediction ritual with unforeseen consequences
1. 1

Unfogging the Future - Chapter 1  
By: PepperjackCandy   
Rating: PG13   
Disclaimer: You recognize it? It's J.K. Rowling's.   
  
A/N: Whole different story from SST. Still H/D, though. ;-)   
  
[Phemonoe][1] was one of the daughters of Apollo and, legend has it, the first Oracle of Delphi.   
  
===========  
  
The Window of Phemonoe was a powerful charm for answering your questions about the future, or so the book said. Harry had mixed the chamomile potion, and brought the bowl of water, vial of potion, and dagger to the lake. The full moon shone overhead as he drank half of the bottle of potion. While he waited, he performed the cleansing ritual, washing his face and hands symbolically in the bowl. Once he felt the pleasant relaxation of the chamomile flooding through his system, he reached his left hand out over the lake. Holding the dagger in his right hand, he slashed quickly downwards.   
  
One, two, three drops of blood, black on the moonlit night, fell into the lake. He quickly stanched the bleeding and leaned forward, staring into the water.  
  
As the book had instructed, he concentrated on what he wanted to know. "Please show me what I need to win against Voldemort." He whispered as he stared at his own reflection.   
  
He leaned forward a little.   
  
_I don't see anything but me. I can't be all I need to defeat Voldemort! Something. Anything!_ He thought desperately.  
  
He leaned forward a little more.  
  
_Maybe it's not supposed to show up clearly._   
  
He leaned forward again to catch anything he wouldn't be able to see otherwise.  
  
_That's strange. My scar - it's backwards to how it usually is in a mirror . . ._  
  
Harry was so distracted by this observation that he fell forward into the lake with a 'sploosh.' Gasping and spluttering, he stood back up - fortunately, the water was only knee-deep in the part of the lake - and slogged back to shore, drenched from head to toe.  
  
_Serves me right, I suppose,_ he thought as he climbed onto the shore of the lake. _Getting ideas like that. What was I thinking? Play an offensive game rather than a defensive one against Voldemort? I play offense in Quidditch. In this, my role's purely defensive._  
  
He cast a quick drying spell on himself and finished the ritual by pouring the remains of the chamomile mixture onto the wound on his hand. He understood this part of the ritual, at least. According to Sprout, even the Muggles knew that chamomile has antibacterial properties.  
  
He walked back into the castle. As he approached the portrait hole, he ran into Ginny, who held the portrait open for him. Ever since she and Neville had split up the previous year, she'd started seeing a Hufflepuff in her own year. They had first become acquainted when he helped her soothe her unhappy Mandrake in Herbology.  
  
"Hey, Ginny." Harry grinned as they stepped into the Gryffindor common room. "Just getting back from meeting your boyfriend?"  
  
She blushed. "That obvious?"  
  
"Nah. Just a lucky guess."  
  
Ginny turned towards the women's wing. "Good night, Harry."  
  
''Night, Ginny." Harry said as he started up the stairs of the men's wing. He reached the room he shared with Dean, Neville, Ron and Seamus. His underwear was still slightly soggy, so he quickly changed into dry underwear and put on his nightshirt and went to bed.  
  
When Harry awoke the next morning, the room was silent. He stuck his head out of the curtains, and saw that Seamus, Ron, Neville and Dean had all already left the room. The curtains around their beds were open.  
  
_Great. Late for Potions. Again._ Harry sighed as he took a clean robe out of his trunk and headed for the shower.  
  
He came out of the bathroom, grabbed his Potions book and assignment out of his trunk and took off at a run for class.  
  
Soon after he'd left the portrait hole, he started hearing the voices of other students, and slowed to a walk. If that many students were still heading to classes, he probably wasn't as late as he had feared.   
  
"Hey, Potter," a sixth year Ravenclaw asked, "where's your other half?"  
  
_He must mean Ron and Hermione, though that's a strange way to put it._ "Oh, er, they went on ahead of me."  
  
The Ravenclaw looked at Harry, clearly confused, and walked away without further comment.  
  
A few other people asked Harry why he was by himself, which Harry thought strange, but he hadn't walked to class without Ron and Hermione in a while, and he decided that must be what they were talking about.  
  
As he walked down the main corridor past the Great Hall, heading towards the stairs down to the dungeons, he heard a familiar voice behind him say, in a decidedly unfamiliar tone, "You didn't come down for breakfast this morning. I was worried about you."  
  
Harry turned to address the speaker, "Malf - ummmf!"   
  
But he was interrupted when Draco's mouth descended on his in a burningly passionate kiss.

   [1]: http://www.pantheon.org/articles/p/phemonoe.html



	2. 2

Unfogging the Future - Chapter 2  
By: PepperjackCandy   
Rating: PG13   
Disclaimer: You recognize it? It's J.K. Rowling's.   
  
Warning: Slash ahead. If the idea of boys snogging and/or talking about romance with boys offends you, turn back now, before it's too late.  
  
=============  
  
_I can't believe this. Malfoy's kissing me._ Harry thought as he found himself kissing Draco back.  
  
_So do something!_   
  
Harry slid a hand up into Draco's hair, running his fingers through the white-gold locks.  
  
_Not that!_  
  
Abruptly, Harry pushed Draco away. "What are you doing, Malfoy?" He exclaimed, disgusted both at Draco and at himself. Mostly at himself.  
  
Harry realized that the corridor had grown deadly quiet when he yelled at Draco. Everyone was staring at him as he dashed through the crowds. _Of course they're staring! You were kissing Draco Malfoy!_ Tears of humiliation threatened to well up in his eyes, but he blinked them away resolutely.  
  
Hurt and confusion shone in Draco's eyes as he watched Harry run through the front doors of the castle. "Harry!" He called out fruitlessly.  
  
Hermione placed a hand on his arm. "You stay here, Draco. I'll go after him and see if I can figure out what's going on. You and Ron go on to class and tell Snape that Harry and I will be late."  
  
Draco shook his head, still staring at the gap that had formed in the crowd when Harry passed through. "No. I've got to talk to him."  
  
"Go on, Hermione." Ron said, as he guided Draco off towards the stairs to the dungeons, trying to talk sense to the Slytherin as they walked.  
  
Hermione followed in Harry's wake, ignoring the whispers and stares of the other Hogwarts students who'd witnessed Harry's outburst.  
  
She walked outside into the sunshine and looked around, soon spotting Harry sitting alone on the steps.  
  
"Hi," she said, sitting down on the step next to him.  
  
"Did you see that, Hermione?" He asked, disgusted.  
  
"Yes." She responded in a noncommittal tone.  
  
"Doesn't that disgust you?"   
  
"Should it?"  
  
"Of course it should! He's *Malfoy* for God's sake!"  
  
"Harry? Are you feeling all right?" She placed a hand gently on his forehead.  
  
He flinched away from her touch. "Of course I'm feeling all right." He snapped.  
  
"Have you . . . taken anything you shouldn't have? Like . . . ?" She couldn't bring herself to say the word 'drugs.'  
  
Harry stared at his feet.   
  
"Harry?"  
  
"No. Of course not." He said with less conviction than he should have.  
  
"Harry?" Hermione repeated.  
  
"Yes, I took something. But it was just chamomile. You know, just strong, room-temperature chamomile tea. For relaxation."  
  
"Why didn't you want to tell me about that, if it was only tea, Harry?"  
  
"I dunno." He shrugged, but she could tell that he wasn't telling her everything.  
  
"You must know, Harry."  
  
Harry continued staring at his feet like he expected them to give him an answer. "Why do you keep calling me 'Harry'?"  
  
"Because it's your name." She said in a soothing tone, like Harry was a madman she was trying to placate.  
  
"But you keep saying it over and over. I know who I am." He stood up and continued down the stairs.   
  
"Where are you going?"  
  
"To Hagrid's." He called out, not looking back.  
  
Hermione wasn't going to give up that easily. Determined to find out what was going on with Harry, she caught up with him and the pair walked together in silence to Hagrid's hut. Harry knocked at Hagrid's door.   
  
"Why, hello!" Hagrid said with a broad smile as he opened the door. "Haven't seen either of you in quite a while."  
  
Harry had just been to see Hagrid a couple of days earlier, but he disregarded this as minor in the face of the other discrepancies he'd faced that day. He had a question to ask. "Hagrid, who has been my biggest . . . rival in the last six and a half years?" He asked in earnest desperation.  
  
Hagrid thought long and hard. "I'd say Voldemort, when he was still a threat to ye, Harry."  
  
This was too much for Harry to process, and he finally snapped. "What do you mean *was* a threat? Of course he's still a threat! I wouldn't have done the Window of Phemonoe charm last night if he wasn't!"  
  
Hermione gasped. "You did the . . . ."  
  
He rounded on her. "Yes. I did the Window of Phemonoe charm! I needed to know what I need to defeat Voldemort!"  
  
"Harry," Hermione said, trying to sound reasonable. "Professor Flitwick warned us. The Window of Phemonoe is a very powerful charm. And unless you're very specific about your requests . . ."  
  
"Of course I was specific! I asked to be shown what I need to defeat Voldemort. And I didn't see anything but my own reflection. Before I fell in the lake, anyway. Then I gave up trying."  
  
"I know this is a strange thing to say," Hermione said, "but I wonder if you didn't get what you asked for."  
  
"What?" Harry and Hagrid asked in unison.  
  
"Well," Hermione began, but she was interrupted by a knock at the door of the hut.  
  
Hagrid answered it.  
  
Harry heard Ron's voice say, "Hi, Hagrid. Have you seen Harry and Hermione?"  
  
"As a matter of fact, I have." Hagrid moved aside to admit Ron and, as it turned out, Draco into the hut.  
  
"This idiot wouldn't take our suggestion, Hermione," Ron said as Draco approached Harry.  
  
Harry braced himself for sarcasm, if not downright venom, from Draco. Instead, he got a soft, "Are you feeling all right, Harry?" asked with concern shining brightly in his gray eyes.  
  
Draco's concern left Harry off-balance, and he attempted to restore his sense of equilibrium by provoking the Slytherin. "I'm fine." He responded shortly. "It's all of you lot I'm worried about."  
  
Harry flinched at the hurt expression that Draco gave him before he looked at Hermione.  
  
"I was just about to explain what I think's happened to Harry. I guess it's good you two came by," she squeezed Draco's hand reassuringly. "This way, I won't have to explain it twice.  
  
Hermione sat down, and everyone else followed her example.  
  
"All right. Is anyone here familiar with the idea that there are infinite universes and that every possibility is played out in one of them?"  
  
Everyone just looked at her blankly.  
  
"That's what I was afraid of." She sighed. "All right. For example, what would Hogwarts today be like if Godric Gryffindor had agreed with Salazar Slytherin about Muggle-borns?"  
  
"Well, you wouldn't be here, for one." Draco said in a matter-of-fact tone.   
  
Harry expected Hermione to make an indignant reply, but simply responded, "Right."  
  
"Or Dean." Ron offered.  
  
Hermione nodded.  
  
"My mum wouldn't have gone here, either." Harry said. "And so I might not even exist."  
  
"That's true, too." Hermione said. "Well, in this theory, all decisions, not just big ones like that, create new timelines. And evidently, in one timeline, the two of you don't get along," she looked from Harry to Draco, "and in another, this one, the two of you do get along, to say the least." She grinned unabashedly at Draco.  
  
"And Harry was sent from his timeline, where he doesn't get along with Draco, to this one, where he does." She finished.   
  
"So why'm I here then?" Harry asked.  
  
"Just like you asked. To be shown how to defeat Voldemort. Our Harry defeated Voldemort."  
  
Draco cleared his throat.  
  
"Correction. Harry and Draco defeated Voldemort together." Hermione amended smiling at Draco.  
  
"What I need to know," Draco said, "is where my Harry is now."   
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
A/N: At this point, I'm going to borrow the nomenclature from Dark Shadows and designate the timeline in which Harry and Draco don't get along, since it's the more familiar to us, as "Regular Time," and the one in which they're in love as "Parallel Time."  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
REGULAR TIME   
  
Harry woke up when Ron stuck his head inside the curtains and said, "You up, Harry?"  
  
"Yeah, I'm up." Harry sighed despondently. He knew he needed to get up, but he couldn't find the energy just yet. He'd had nightmares about Draco all night. Of Draco being hurt or killed, or of Draco not recognizing him at all. Strange dreams about some other boy, not Draco at all, being at Madame Malkin's when he went for his robe fitting before starting at Hogwarts. He supposed it was probably the ritual. All that chamomile tea and bloodletting on nights of full moons would make anyone disposed to nightmares.  
  
"You all right?"  
  
"'Course I am. Why wouldn't I be?" Harry asked, not very convincingly.  
  
Ron shrugged. "Well, if there is something bothering you, you know you can talk to Hermione and me about it, right?"  
  
"Yeah. I know. Thanks." Harry gave his friend a wan smile and stood up.  
  
His mind was still on the ritual. _The Window of Phemonoe is supposed to answer your questions,_ he thought, _but I sure didn't get any answer to my question. I *want* to talk to Draco about making our commitment to each other permanent, but I won't - I can't - until I know if that's the right thing to do. We're both so young, and yet we've been through so much. . ._  
  
Soon, freshly showered and dressed in a clean robe, Harry went with Ron to the common room to wait for Hermione. As the trio walked out through the portrait hole, Harry was seized by a sudden need to see Draco again. To reassure himself that Draco was all right. So he said, "I've got to see if I can catch Draco before breakfast. I had the strangest dream about him last night . . ."  
  
He was stopped when Ron grabbed the back of his robe, detaining him. "Since when have you and Malfoy been on a first-name basis?"  
  
"Since when have you called Draco 'Malfoy'?" Harry countered defensively.  
  
"Harry? What's that on your hand?" Hermione asked.  
  
Harry quickly stuck his left hand behind his back. "Nothing."  
  
"I could have sworn I saw a scratch on your hand." Hermione snapped authoritatively, grabbing Harry's arm and pulling the hand out from behind his back. "Ah-HA! See, didn't I tell you?" She said to Ron, indicating the slice that ran from one edge of Harry's palm to the other.   
  
"You should have Madam Pomfrey take a look at that," Ron said, concerned.  
  
"It's fine. Just a small scratch." Harry lied. "Now I've got to go find Draco."  
  
Before Hermione and Ron knew what had happened, Harry ran off and quickly got lost in the crowd of students.  
  
They exchanged a very worried look, and then stared in the direction that Harry had gone.  
  
"You thinking what I'm thinking?" Ron asked.  
  
"You want to go rummage through Harry's stuff looking for whatever did that."  
  
"It might explain why Harry's acting so odd."  
  
Together, they walked back through the portrait hole and up to the boys' dormitory.  
  
_What was with them?_ Harry wondered as he walked. _It's like they were trying to keep me from seeing Draco. And calling him 'Malfoy.' It just doesn't make any sense._  
  
He descended the stairs to the dungeons. His heart pounded with pleasant anticipation at the thought of seeing the man he loved again. It never failed, even after five years of friendship and one year as a couple.   
  
He saw the portrait that marked the entrance to the Slytherin common room and whispered the password to it. "Treason."  
  
The portrait smiled coldly. "That's one I haven't heard in ages." She said.  
  
"But it's the current password." Harry insisted. He well remembered the night Draco chose it. He'd just received another letter from his father, this one stern and threatening and accusing Draco of treason. Draco thought it just too funny to use his own father's words as the password for the Slytherin tower.  
  
She shook her head. "No it isn't."  
  
But Harry didn't get any farther in his argument with the portrait, for soon Hermione and Ron turned up, fury shining from their eyes.  
  
"Do you care to explain *this*?" Hermione asked, holding out the dagger he'd used in the ritual the night before.  
  
===========  
  
A/N: All right, anyone who's confused, raise your hand. Let's see if I can explain this properly. Any section labeled "real time" has the Ron, Hermione and Draco that we know and love, but a different Harry. Any section labeled "parallel time" has a Ron, Hermione and Draco who are all friends, but has our usual Harry.


	3. 3

Unfogging the Future - Chapter 3  
By: PepperjackCandy   
Rating: PG13   
Disclaimer: You recognize it? It's J.K. Rowling's.  
  
Warning: Slash ahead. If the idea of boys snogging and/or talking about romance with boys offends you, turn back now, before it's too late.  
  
=============  
  
REGULAR TIME  
  
Harry instinctively got defensive when he saw the dagger in Hermione's hand. "Why don't you tell *me* what it's for, Hermione? Since you found it, you obviously know what I used it for."  
  
"Harry," Hermione said warningly. "You know the Window of Phemonoe is a very powerful charm. And powerful charms are unpredictable charms. Who knows what the result could have been."  
  
"I do, now." Harry snapped. "Obviously it's made everyone, including this stupid portrait, forget all about Draco and me." All of the anger suddenly drained from him. "Which means I got my answer, I guess." Dejected, Harry started to walk away, back up the stairs to the main floor of the castle.  
  
Ron and Hermione followed him silently. Finally, as they mounted the stairs towards the Gryffindor portrait hole, Hermione broke the silence. "What did you ask the charm to show you?"  
  
"I wanted it to show me if Draco really is my true love, and if I should bring up the subject of making a permanent commitment to him."  
  
He saw Ron's lips curl in distaste.   
  
"That's what I mean. The Ron I remember was friends with Draco." Harry insisted, ignoring Ron's snort of disbelief.   
  
"And in your memory, Draco told you the password to the Slytherin Tower?" Hermione asked.  
  
"I was there when he came up with it. It was our private joke. You see, in one of Lucius's letters, he'd berated Draco for committing treason against him. Draco said it was just like his father not to understand his reasons for what he did."  
  
"Love?"  
  
"Well, friendship at first. We realized it was love soon afterwards."   
  
"So Lucius Malfoy knew about the two of you?" Ron asked.  
  
Hermione gave the password to the fat lady. "Chupacabras suck."  
  
"Who changed the password?" Harry asked.  
  
"That's been the password for a week now." Ron said.  
  
Harry shook his head. "No, the password's been 'peppermint toads' since Friday."  
  
Harry could see Hermione filing this discrepancy away for future reference as the trio started up the stairs to the boys' side of the tower. Once they'd reached the seventh year boys' room, Harry sat on the floor beside his bed, and Ron and Hermione sat on Ron's bed. Harry pulled the book, bowl and vial from under his bed.   
  
"So how did Lucius Malfoy find out about you and Draco anyway?" Hermione asked.  
  
"Draco told him. At his trial, just before they took him to Azkaban."  
  
"Lucius Malfoy's not in Azkaban, Harry. You-Know-Who is still protecting him."  
  
Harry's face blanched, and he shook his head slowly from side to side in disbelief. "But Voldemort's dead. Draco killed him."  
  
"I doubt the ritual could have brought You-Know-Who back from the dead. . . ." Hermione mused to herself.   
  
Then, she looked from Ron to Harry, as if she'd made a decision. "You know what?" Hermione said as she took the book from Harry. "I don't think the ritual changed reality at all. I think something else has happened."  
  
PARALLEL TIME  
  
Harry saw the desperation in Draco's eyes when he asked after 'his' Harry, and his heart went out to the other young man.   
  
"I don't think we can know for certain where our Harry is, Draco," Hermione said, "but it's entirely possible that he and Harry, here, simply switched places."  
  
"I wonder . . ." Harry began. But his surprise to see all eyes turn towards him made him start again. "I wonder how different I am from that other Harry."  
  
He continued his thought. "And if I'm not that different from the other Harry, I wonder what's under his bed."  
  
Gambling that Harry was onto something, the four students bid Hagrid farewell and headed for the seventh year Gryffindor boys' room.  
  
Once there, Harry reached under the bed and as expected, pulled out the book with the Window of Phemonoe ritual bookmarked, the bowl, the vial, and the dagger.  
  
He sat back on his heels and smiled up at Ron, Hermione and Draco. "That's what I thought. I'll bet that you're right, Hermione. Your Harry *is* in my timeline."  
  
Ron looked doubtful. "You might be jumping to conclusions. Just because both of you did the same ritual last night . . ."  
  
"No. It's not just because we both did the Window of Phemonoe ritual. Haven't you wondered why it's called the *Window* of Phemonoe? I think that under the right circumstances, the 'window' will open and allow a person to pass through into a timeline where they can live the answer to their question."  
  
"And what are those right circumstances?" Ron asked.  
  
Harry gave smiled as he looked from Ron, to Hermione, and over to Draco. "Your Harry and I did the ritual at the same time last night. I know because I saw him just before we switched places."  
  
The other three looked at him, bewildered, so he elaborated. "Before I fell into the lake, I noticed that my scar was backwards to how it normally is in a mirror."  
  
Hermione's eyes widened. "So you think . . ."  
  
Harry nodded. "That I was seeing your Harry in this timeline through the 'window.'"  
  
"But how do we get him back?" Draco asked.  
  
"I'll see what I can find on the Window of Phemonoe, but I suspect that," she paused, unwilling to say what was on everyone's mind, _if we ever get him back,_ "the ritual will switch them back itself once their questions have been answered."  
  
Just then, Seamus and Dean returned to the room.   
  
Dean looked down at the bowl, dagger, vial and book on the floor "If this is some kind of strange group experience, I don't want to know." He joked as he took his Charms homework from his trunk.  
  
"Hey, if this is some kind of strange group experience, I want in." Seamus grinned.  
  
"Let's go, Seamus." Dean grabbed Seamus's shoulder and steered the sandy-haired boy from the room.  
  
"Looks like Potions has let out, and I don't know about in your timeline, but we *aren't* Flitwick's pets in this one, so we'd better get going." Ron said.  
  
"Oh, and like we'd ever be Snape's pets." Harry rolled his eyes.  
  
"Umm. . . Harry?" Hermione asked tentatively. "We *are* Snape's pets in this timeline."  
  
Harry goggled. "We are?"  
  
The quartet continued talking as they walked to the stairs back down to the common room.  
  
Draco grinned. "Yep. Snape was so desperate to keep me out of Voldemort's hands, that he was tickled pink that Voldemort's worst enemy had befriended me. Enough that he was able to completely forget that you were all Gryffindors."  
  
"And what my dad's friends did to him in school? Wow . . ." Harry whistled low.  
  
Ron, Hermione and Draco all looked at him curiously.  
  
"What did your dad's friends do to Snape in school?" Ron asked.  
  
Harry sighed. "Did you have Remus Lupin as Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher in third year?"  
  
This question was greeted by general sounds of agreement.   
  
"And the whole Snape thing didn't come up at all? What about Sirius?"   
Hermione gasped. "Do you mean Sirius Black? He's still out there somewhere. We were afraid he'd still come after you for a while after you and Draco defeated Voldemort, but he never did."  
  
Harry shook his head. "If everything that happened in 1981 is unchanged in this timeline, then he's no threat to me. Another one of my father's friends did it. Do you still have Scabbers, Ron?"  
  
Ron stiffened. "No. *Her* cat killed him."  
  
Harry heard Hermione whisper to herself, "Not that again."  
  
"Let me guess. In third year?" Harry asked.  
  
"Mm-hmmm. Your Ron, too?"  
  
"Sort of. Let's talk about this later, OK, guys?" Harry didn't feel comfortable talking about Sirius Black and Wormtail anymore, as they'd passed through the portrait hole by now, and had joined the general Hogwarts student body.  
  
Draco had been keeping off to one side of the group, and Harry noticed this just as the three Gryffindors were about to head towards the Charms classroom. "Malf - Draco? Can I talk to you for a second?"  
  
The desperate sadness in Draco's eyes tugged at Harry's heart. "Sure. What do you need?"  
  
"You guys go on ahead. I'll catch up." He said to Ron and Hermione, then he pulled Draco out of the traffic pattern behind a particularly large statue.  
  
"I'll understand if you say no," Harry began. "God knows I don't know if I'd be able to stand it if the person I loved disappeared and was replaced by someone identical who didn't remember me. . . ."  
  
Draco interrupted him. "All right. Spit it out, Harry."   
  
Harry was brought up short by Draco's impatient tone, until he noticed the affectionate smile on the Slytherin's face. "Sorry." Draco grinned. "My Harry does that all the time, too. Apologizes over and over."  
  
"Well, what I was going to ask you was if we could spend some time together. If Hermione's right, and I'm here to learn what I need to defeat Voldemort, and, even more frightening, if I need my timeline's Draco to do it, I'll need to get to know him, and since he will hate me until after I've finished ingratiating myself to him, I figure that I should get to know you while I have the chance . . ." He realized he was babbling, but there was precious little chance of stopping it by then.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"What?"  
  
"I said, 'yes.' I will meet with you. Harry and I used to take turns eating lunch at each other's tables. I'll meet you at the Gryffindor table for lunch?"  
  
Draco gave Harry a warm, charming smile that he couldn't imagine his own timeline's Draco Malfoy ever being capable of, and he started to see what that other Harry saw in this Draco Malfoy.  
  
"Yeah. See you then." Harry smiled at Draco and headed off to Charms class.


	4. 4

Unfogging the Future - Chapter 4  
By: PepperjackCandy   
Rating: PG13   
Disclaimer: You recognize it? It's J.K. Rowling's.   
Warning: Slash ahead. If the idea of boys snogging and/or talking about romance with boys offends you, turn back now, before it's too late.  
  
=============  
  
REGULAR TIME  
  
"So let me get this straight," Harry said once Hermione finished explaining about parallel timelines. "There's a timeline somewhere where the Dursleys let me read my Hogwarts acceptance letter the first time I got it."  
  
"Right." Hermione responded.  
  
"So how would that timeline be different from this one? Or the one I'm from?"  
  
Hermione shrugged. "Dunno. The Dursleys'd have a few more pounds, since they didn't waste money dragging you across the country to avoid the letters?"  
  
"Not to mention the embarrassment they'd've saved having to get the pig's tail removed from Dudley," Ron chuckled.  
  
"That happened in this timeline, too?" Harry asked. "I wonder where the two timelines separated."  
  
Hermione glanced at the clock, and was suddenly all business. "Speaking of differences, what class do you have after Potions?"  
  
"Charms."  
  
"So do we, and we're running late for it."  
  
PARALLEL TIME  
  
Harry was nervous as he walked through the hallways towards the Great Hall after Charms. _Maybe Malf - Draco won't be there._ He wasn't entirely certain whether this would be a good or a bad thing. He still remembered the searingly-passionate kiss that Draco had given him that morning, and his own eager reaction to it.   
  
He paused outside the Great Hall to collect his thoughts, pushed his glasses up his nose nervously, and walked into the room. There, at the Gryffindor table, Harry could see Draco's blond hair shining like a beacon. Harry only wished he knew whether it was a welcoming light to draw him closer or a warning light to drive him away.  
  
But draw him closer it did, until he found himself standing, breathless, at the Slytherin's right elbow. "Hi," he began, "is this seat taken?"  
  
For a moment, Harry could almost read Draco's mind. He could nearly hear the Slytherin's happiness at hearing his voice, and then the nearly-simultaneously disappointment as Draco remembered that he was the wrong Harry Potter.   
  
"Hi." Draco smiled warmly, but not *too* warmly, at him. "Yeah. That seat's taken. Now. By you." He indicated for Harry to sit down.  
  
They sat in silence for a while, both uncertain how to open their conversation. Finally, Harry made the opening move. "The decision that separates this reality from my own must have been pretty huge. I just cannot imagine myself being at all friendly with Draco Malfoy. And that goes double for Ron."  
  
Draco blushed slightly. "Well, I must admit I was a bit of a prat to my Harry at first. When we first met at Madam Malkin's Robe Shop, for example."  
  
Harry sat up when Draco mentioned Madam Malkin's. "You went on about Quidditch and asked him if he was from a wizarding family, didn't you?"  
  
Draco leaned forward now, and nodded. "And he didn't know anything about Quidditch at all, and said that his parents were a witch and a wizard, if that's what I meant by a wizarding family, and he said that he thought Hagrid was brilliant."  
  
Harry and Draco stared into each other's eyes for a moment, stunned.  
  
Harry spoke again. "And the next time we met was on the . . . "  
  
"Hogwarts Express." They said simultaneously.  
  
"I was a prat again, insulting Ron about his family's lack of money and dragging Crabbe and Goyle around like I was some kind of Muggle rock star and they were my bodyguards."  
  
Harry nodded encouragingly.  
  
"And when I offered my hand in friendship to Harry . . ."  
  
"He rejected you."  
  
"No."  
  
"No?"  
  
Draco shook his head. "No. He accepted. What did you do?"  
  
"He said that he'd keep me from befriending the 'wrong sort'." He saw Draco cringe at the memory. "And I said that I thought I could tell who the 'wrong sort' were for myself."  
  
Draco flinched. "Ouch. Yeah, I think I can see where things went wrong for you and your timeline's Draco."  
  
"That made the difference?"  
  
Draco nodded. "It must have done. When my Harry accepted, we shook hands on it. I always took my promises very seriously as a child. Not that I was raised to always be trustworthy, mind. But if Lucius Malfoy taught me anything, it was always to abide by the promises I make, so that they never see the betrayal coming. Remember, my father had everyone, including Cornelius Fudge, believing that he'd been under the _imperius_ curse and that he was a fine, upstanding member of the community." He grinned wryly at Harry. "So when Harry got Sorted into Gryffindor, I started being hostile towards Harry and his friends. Harry just had to threaten to tell everyone that I wasn't as good as my promise. That pretty much stopped that right there.  
  
"There wasn't any kind of dramatic moment of conversion or anything, either. It's just that every day I saw bits of what made Harry so fond of them, though I'll admit that I still put my housemates up to harassing them for a couple of years, but by the end of third year or so, I was actually starting to warm up to them, and nowadays I count them as two of my own true friends."  
  
REGULAR TIME  
  
"Harry? Are you in there, Harry?"   
  
Hermione's voice brought Harry back to reality. "Huh?"  
  
"You probably shouldn't be staring at Malfoy like that." She said.  
  
"Your Harry doesn't watch him?" Harry seemed stunned by the idea.  
  
"Well, yeah, he does, only it's with more hostility," Ron began, "and less . . ."  
  
"Lovesickness." Hermione finished for him.  
  
"It's just so frustrating," Harry said, "to have him right over there and know that I can't just go over and kiss him, or even *talk* to him."  
  
"Harry Potter kissing Draco Malfoy," Ron shuddered. "That's a mental image I don't need."  
  
Harry only shook his head slowly. It amazed him that his Draco could be so different from the one in this timeline. Actually, maybe it didn't. "Ron?" His eyes were drawn back across the room to Draco.  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
Harry looked at Ron. "Where did things go wrong? For you and Drac - Malfoy?"  
  
Ron snorted. "It all started when I was born a Weasley and he was born a Malfoy."  
  
"How about for Malfoy and me?"  
  
"I guess I could say the same, only with 'Potter' instead of 'Weasley.'"  
  
"Hm." Harry looked over at Draco again. This time, the expression was assessing, rather than lovesick.  
  
"What are you thinking?"   
"Nothing."  
  
"Don't give me that, Harry. Whichever timeline you're from, I can still see the wheels turning in your head."  
  
He looked back at Ron again. "Well, in my timeline, Malfoy offered to be my friend on the train to Hogwarts in first year."  
  
Ron nodded. "Yeah. That happened in this timeline, too."  
  
"And what did your Harry do?"  
  
"Turned him down flat, of course." Ron's eyes widened. "Harry! You're not trying to tell me that . . .?"  
  
Harry didn't need for Ron to finish the thought. "Yeah. I accepted. I don't know why I did it, just that I did, and I used that against him when he was a prat to us. Eventually he lightened up, and we really did become friends." Harry shrugged. "And as for the rest, well, that just kind of grew naturally out of our friendship."  
  
"Oh, my God." Hermione breathed, drawing the attention of both boys. "You know what you just did?"  
  
Harry shook his head slowly.  
  
"You just found the place where the timelines split."  
  
"Are you sure?" Harry looked dubious.  
  
"It's a good bet. If Malfoy made the same offer in both timelines, but your answer was different in each one . . ."  
  
"You know," Ron said, "she might have a point."  
  
"So, if that's where the timelines separated, how does that answer my question about my relationship with Draco?"  
  
"Maybe so you can see that you're happier with Draco in a Voldemort-free world?" Ron offered.  
  
"Possible . . . " Harry admitted as they collected their things and headed off to Care of Magical Creatures.  
  
PARALLEL TIME  
  
"This is so disorienting," Harry whispered to Draco when Hagrid greeted the four of them cheerfully.  
  
"What?" Draco asked. "You don't have Care of Magical Creatures in your timeline?"  
  
"Oh, no. We do, and it's even taught by Hagrid. But Malfoy hates Hagrid, and the feeling's mutual." Harry looked at the ground, then back up into Draco's silver eyes. "Malfoy nearly got one of Hagrid's hippogriffs executed in third year."  
  
Draco looked into Harry's eyes for a long moment, then down at Harry's lips. Harry wondered briefly if Draco was going to kiss him again, and worried about what it meant that he *wanted* Draco to kiss him. Instead, Draco looked back up at Harry's eyes and spoke with a quiet intensity. "I can tell you why Draco Malfoy hates Rubeus Hagrid, if you'd like to know. Or at least how it started."  
  
Harry nodded silently.  
  
"Imagine this. You're eleven, going on twelve, getting fitted for your school robes, when suddenly the most beautiful person in the world walks in. Everything about this person is perfect - hair, eyes, skin," Harry felt Draco's eyes caress him as he spoke.   
  
"And you want to impress this person. You try to be charming and witty, but all that comes out is bragging. Bragging about your family, your Quidditch skills, your money. You hope that this will impress this person, though you're still desperately afraid that it won't. You continue nattering on, this time about your precious pureblood family, for it's the only thing your father has ever given you to be proud of in your life.   
  
"And so you hope that this, this bright angel," Draco smiled as the endearment evoked some kind of fond memory for him, "will feel your attraction, and return it, but who does he seem impressed by?"  
  
_Am I the 'bright angel' that he's talking about?_ Harry thought in wonderment. He shook his head slowly, afraid to put voice to his thoughts.  
  
Draco smiled sadly. "Rubeus Hagrid. He describes Hagrid as 'brilliant.' And smiles when he says it. I would have given anything for you to have said the same about me, Harry." The look in his eyes changed to one of pleading. "Or to have even the hope that you'd think it."  
  
Harry was dumbstruck. Finally he found his voice. "You're saying that you - that Malfoy - was attracted to . . . me?"  
  
Draco nodded. "You know, I've never said that, even to my own Harry. I've always thought he'd be uncomfortable about it. Knowing that I'd been carrying a torch for him since the first time we met. It certainly added fuel to the fire of Draco's hostility towards you. On top of his humiliation that you rejected him, and his disdain that you got Sorted into Gryffindor. He was probably doing the same thing most boys his age do with their crushes - trying to get your attention."  
  
"You should tell your Harry, once we figure out how to switch us back." Harry told him solemnly.  
  
"I know that now. If you didn't run screaming when I told you, then I guess my Harry might take it all right." They smiled at each other.  
  
Harry looked around. "Where's everyone else?"  
  
Draco came back into the moment then and grinned broadly. "I guess we got so wrapped up in our conversation, that we didn't notice. Well, let's head off towards the stables. Maybe someone there can tell us where the class is meeting."   
  
REGULAR TIME  
  
Draco got into Harry's face. "What're you looking at, Potter?" He sneered.  
  
Harry looked slowly up and down Draco's body. "You." He said simply. He wondered what this timeline's Draco Malfoy would do if he were to close the distance between them and kiss him. Would he resist, or would he moan softly and give himself up to the sensations of the kiss?   
  
Draco was the one who stepped forward, however, grabbing the lapels of Harry's robe and pulling him forward. Just as Harry shifted his weight to allow himself to be pulled forward, Draco pushed him back sharply, causing Harry to land hard on his rear.  
  
Draco's laughter only lasted seconds, for, faster than he could have followed, Harry was up. He had Draco's arm twisted behind his back, and this time Draco ended up face down in the dirt.   
  
The other Care of Magical Creatures students noticed the confrontation and started mumbling among themselves as Crabbe and Goyle rushed in. They each grabbed one of Harry's arms, pulling him off the blond Slytherin.   
  
Draco stood, and as he turned to face Harry, rage twisting his features, Harry felt his arms being released.   
  
"All right. Break it up." He heard Hagrid's voice booming behind him. Harry turned to see the half-giant holding one hulking Slytherin by the scruff of the neck in each hand.  
  
"Are ye all right, Harry?" Hagrid asked.  
  
"Yeah. I'm fine." Harry assured him.  
  
"I'm fine, too, Hagrid. Thank you for asking." Draco's bitter tone cut Harry to the core. He turned to see the blond young man, the very image of his love, walking away, rubbing his sore arm.  
  
Harry instinctively took a step forward to follow Draco, but Ron's hand on his shoulder stopped him. "Don't." Ron said.  
  
"But I've got to . . ." Harry insisted.  
  
Hermione shook her head. "Ron's right, Harry. You can't go after him. Remember, in this timeline, Draco's still on You-Know-Who's side. If you start acting differently, you might give away the information that you're not from this timeline, who knows what You-Know-Who or the Death Eaters could do with that knowledge?"  
  
Harry looked from Ron to Hermione and back again. He seemed to deflate slightly with his sigh. "You're right." He said, as the trio turned to follow the rest of their class out to the stables. 


	5. 5

Unfogging the Future - Chapter 5  
By: PepperjackCandy   
Rating: PG13 Disclaimer: You recognize it? It's J.K. Rowling's.   
Warning: Slash ahead. If the idea of boys snogging and/or talking about romance with boys offends you, turn back now, before it's too late.  
  
=============  
  
PARALLEL TIME  
  
At dinner that night, Harry saw this timeline's Snape for the first time. The Potions Master so looked different that it took Harry a while to catalog all of the differences.   
  
The most obvious was his appearance. Where his own timeline's Snape's hair was slicked down with some kind of grease, hanging lank around his sallow face, this timeline's Snape had hair that looked almost like a Muggle shampoo model's. Or a musician with a Muggle 'hair band.' It hung past his shoulders in luxurious waves so dark brown as to look *almost* black.   
  
As Snape pulled back the Veronica Lake-style wave which swooped down from his hairline in a way that Harry knew would have been a cowlick had it been shorter, Harry noticed the difference in Snape's demeanor. He wasn't smiling or laughing, but nevertheless, he looked almost happy.   
  
"All right." He whispered to Ron, Hermione and Draco. "What's Snape's story in this timeline?"  
  
Ron grinned widely. "Actually, if you're not gone by Saturday, you're going to find out."  
  
Harry looked at him, confused.  
  
"Snape's getting married." Ron elaborated.  
  
"And we're going to the wedding?"  
  
"No." Ron's grin grew wider and he winked at Draco. "We're standing up in the wedding. Y'see, when it's all said and done, Severus Snape will be Severus Weasley. My brother-in-law."  
  
"Your brother-in-law?" Harry repeated. "Your folks are letting Ginny get married in sixth year?"  
  
"Not Ginny." Ron corrected him around a mouthful of mashed potatoes. He swallowed. "Bill."  
  
"Bill? Gringott's-Curse-Breaker Bill? How . . . ? When . . . ? I don't think they even know each other in my timeline"  
  
Ron shrugged. "Actually, Snape took the Potions Master job in Bill's . . . second year? Third? Something like that. So your Snape probably knows your Bill, too. Well, anyway, Bill came with Mum to see you, I mean our Harry, in the Third Task in fourth year."  
  
Harry nodded. That had happened in his own timeline.  
  
"Well, with everything that had happened, Snape was worried about you, and he and Bill got to talking . . ."  
  
Harry glanced over at this timeline's Severus Snape again. "What about Bill's job? Won't that be a problem for them?"  
  
"Bill's been with Gringott's for ten years now, and so he's got seniority. He gets first pick of the assignments, and can have his home base anywhere he wants. So he's chosen Hogwarts."  
  
"And your timeline's Snape looks so . . . different."  
  
"If you mean the hair, that would be Bill's doing again. Snape would use this potion to get rid of the waves and things. But it was greasy and would get all over everything. You should have seen Mum after he left when he came to dinner the first time, trying to clean the grease off the furniture. She finally went and made some antimacassars to use in his future visits. "[1][1]  
  
"But eventually, Bill convinced him to try just letting his hair go -- seeing how it looked with the waves in it. He liked it a lot better that way, evidently." Ron grinned and winked.   
  
"But it's not just the hair. It's everything. His whole attitude is different." Harry shook his head slowly. Of all of the changes he'd seen in this timeline, the most amazing was a happy, clean-haired Snape. _Will wonders never cease?_ He thought as he turned back to his dinner.  
  
REGULAR TIME   
  
Harry picked at his food, stealing occasional glances over at the Slytherin table, where Draco was holding court. He spoke animatedly, gesturing wildly. Periodically, he'd break off and his housemates would burst out in uproarious laughter.  
  
"You'd better eat something, you know." Hermione told him concernedly. "You won't do any good for your Draco if you starve to death before you and our Harry get your answers and switch back."  
  
"I know." Harry grumbled. "But I should be over there, you know. At the Slytherin table. We take turns eating at each others' tables, and tonight it was the Slytherin table's turn."  
  
Hermione switched into 'mother' mode, then. "Tell you what. Finish your potato and I'll leave you alone. If you get your appetite back later tonight, then after we're done with our Charms homework, we can all go down to the kitchen to see what we can scrounge off of the house-elves."  
  
Harry threw one last baleful glance at the Slytherin table and began eating unenthusiastically.   
  
Ron furrowed his brow at Hermione. "You never let me or our Harry off that easily."   
  
"Yeah, well neither of you ever had to pine away watching your true love from across the room."  
  
"How can you be so certain?" Ron asked.  
  
Harry could tell that Ron and Hermione were going to start squabbling again. They did this in his own timeline, too. He sought a way to stop them before he developed a headache on top of his lack of appetite. Then he saw this timeline's Severus Snape for the first time, looking forlorn and greasy. "What's your Snape's story?" He asked.  
  
It worked. Ron and Hermione turned towards him, asking simultaneously, "What?"   
  
"Snape. He looks so . . . sad, sitting up there by himself."  
  
Ron snorted. "The git deserves it, too."   
  
"He's really that bad to you?"  
  
"And you, well, our Harry. He hates him for what Harry's father's friends did to him when they were students here."  
  
Harry nodded. He cast his memory back to his first days at Hogwarts. Snape had admitted to them that he'd borne an old grudge against James and his friends against Harry and his. But soon he'd realized that Harry and his friends had been another lifeline keeping Draco from the Dark, and he let go of that old grudge.  
  
"So that's what twenty years of unrelenting bitterness looks like." Harry sighed sadly.  
  
"Don't feel any pity for him. Whatever bitterness he feels, he doles out in equal measure to his students." Ron replied.  
  
But Harry wasn't so sure about that.  
  
PARALLEL TIME  
  
After dinner, Harry, Draco, Hermione and Ron retreated to the library to get some homework done. "This is nice." He said, leaning back in his chair. "No detentions. Snape nearly always gives one of us a detention in my timeline."   
  
"So, what was that you wanted to tell us about," Ron whispered, looking around to make sure he wasn't overheard, " . Sirius Black? >  
  
Harry lowered his voice and leaned in towards the center of the table. "Well, basically, Sirius didn't betray my parents at all."  
  
"Wait a second." Ron interrupted him. "Why would he have gone to Azkaban if he hadn't done it?"  
  
Harry shrugged. "Everyone believed he was guilty. Even Dumbledore did. What could he possibly have done to convince them that he was innocent?  
  
"Especially since he blamed himself for my parents' deaths. Indirectly, of course." He said to forestall any questions. "He was supposed to have been their Secret Keeper, but he convinced another of their friends, Peter Pettigrew, to be their Secret Keeper instead.   
  
"Peter Pettigrew, who was a Death Eater. He also went by two other names that you might know him better by. One of them was 'Wormtail.'"  
  
Draco's jaw dropped. "Wormtail? Wormtail was Peter Pettigrew?"  
  
"But Peter Pettigrew is dead, Harry." Hermione said.  
  
Harry didn't respond to either Draco or Hermione. Instead, he looked directly at Ron. "The other name he went by was Scabbers."  
  
Disbelief clouded Ron's features. "I don't know what you've been smoking in your timeline, Harry, but this is utterly ridiculous. There is no way that Scabbers could have been Peter Pettigrew, or anyone else."  
  
"Scabbers was missing a toe, wasn't he?"  
  
Ron nodded.   
  
"Which one?"  
  
"The first one on his right front paw."   
  
Harry looked at Draco, who closed his eyes for a moment. "Wormtail's," the blond Slytherin wrapped his left hand around his right hand, "right hand wasn't real. It was magical."  
  
Harry nodded. "If the timelines of the Triwizard Tournament match, Wormtail gave up his right hand to resurrect Voldemort. The hand he had already cut the index finger from in order to fake his death thirteen years earlier."  
  
Hermione, Ron and Draco all looked at each other. "This really makes an kind of awful sense." Hermione spoke for all of them.   
  
Harry nodded silently, not sure what to say.  
  
"Is there anything we can do about our timeline's Sirius Black?" Draco asked.  
  
"What happened to this timeline's Wormtail?"   
  
"He's dead. Voldemort killed him just before I killed Voldemort."  
  
Harry sighed. "I wish I knew what you could do. My own timeline's Wormtail's still alive, but we haven't cleared Sirius' name yet, either."  
  
Harry stood. "I should never have mentioned this. I don't know why I brought it up."  
  
"It's good that you told us, Harry." Hermione told him consolingly. "Maybe someday, one of us can find a way to clear his name."  
  
"Yeah." Harry said disheartened. "Still, I've got to get out of here for a while. Clear my head."   
  
He headed for the door of the library.  
  
Draco stood.   
  
"Draco, don't!" Hermione said, but the blond didn't pay any attention as he followed Harry out the door of the library.  
  
"Harry!" He called once they were out of Madam Pince's earshot.  
  
Harry turned and looked. Seeing Draco follow him, he hunched his shoulders up and kept walking.  
  
Draco wasn't to be dissuaded, however, he simply sped up to catch up to Harry.  
  
"Hi." Draco began simply.   
  
"What are you doing here?" Harry responded grumpily.  
  
"I figured you needed someone to talk to. Our conversation about Sirius seems to have really upset you somehow."  
  
"Yes. It has." Harry spun to face Draco, pain flashing in his green eyes. "Sirius is my godfather. He's the only father I've ever had. I'm worried enough for my own timeline's Sirius, without having to worry about other timelines' Siriuses as well."  
  
"Don't worry about it, Harry." Draco said, cradling the unhappy Gryffindor against his chest. "My Harry and I were able to defeat Voldemort and break up the Death Eaters by ourselves. I'm certain we can find some way to clear Sirius. Maybe we can use some _veritaserum_ on my father and get him to tell what he knows about Wormtail."  
  
Harry pulled his head back and looked up at Draco, looking hopefully up at him. "You think so?" He asked in a tiny voice.  
  
"I'm certain of it." Draco assured him as Harry relaxed into his embrace once more.  
  
===========  
  
1 I'm going to assume that as a resident of the wizarding world, Ron's familiar with the term ["antimacassar"][2]. Plus I just wanted to say "antimacassar." [return to story][3]  
  
A/N II: Also, I know that it's strange having the events of _Prisoner of Azkaban_ work out differently, but _Goblet of Fire_ work out the same, but that's the nature of the multiverse theory - that **every** possibility is played out. And besides, I really like reggibar's Bill/Snape stories, and wanted to include them here, so that's the best place I could find for their paths to have crossed since the timelines diverged.

   [1]: #1
   [2]: http://www.notredame.ac.jp/cgi-bin/wn?cmd=wn&word=antimacassar
   [3]: #return



	6. 6

Unfogging the Future - Chapter 6  
By: PepperjackCandy   
Rating: PG13 Disclaimer: You recognize it? It's J.K. Rowling's.   
Warning: Slash ahead. If the idea of boys snogging and/or talking about romance with boys offends you, turn back now, before it's too late.  
  
=============  
  
PARALLEL TIME  
  
Harry stood like that for a while, as Draco held him, enjoying the feeling of being held. He'd been hugged, of course, by Hermione and, less frequently, Ron, and sometimes when he went to the Burrow, Molly Weasley would put her arms around him and hold him, rocking back and forth like he was one of her own children.   
  
This was different. It was still comforting, of course, but he felt more protected somehow. Sheltered.  
  
Harry and Draco were of a height, but Harry felt smaller as he rested his cheek on Draco's shoulder. Eventually, he lifted his eyes to Draco's face, taking in the other's pale skin and platinum hair, the way his eyelashes fanned over his cheekbones as he held his eyes closed.  
  
_He really is beautiful,_ Harry thought. He wanted to touch Draco, to kiss him, but he didn't. Instead, he spoke.  
  
"So, you said that back when we met at Madam Malkin's that Draco . . . that you . . . ."  
  
Draco released Harry, smiling. "That I was attracted to you. What about it?"  
  
"Well, I was wondering if I could somehow use that," he hesitated to say _against,_ "with my timeline's Draco."  
  
Draco drew Harry into an empty classroom and they sat down. "I don't think that would work." Draco said with simple honesty.   
  
He paused for a moment, then continued. "If he hasn't convinced himself that it was some kind of temporary insanity, or just some kind of pre-teen crush, he won't thank you to be reminded of it."   
  
Harry sat silently, trying to digest this information.  
  
"Is he dating anyone in your timeline?"  
  
Harry nodded. "Pansy Parkinson."  
  
Draco cringed.   
  
"What?"  
  
"Didn't you notice that her father wasn't there when the Death Eaters gathered?"  
  
"After the Triwizard Tournament?"  
  
Draco nodded.  
  
"Well, now that you mention it . . ."  
  
"It's because he's in Azkaban. Both of her parents are. Joan and Vincent Parkinson were Death Eaters in a way that makes my father look like a Doubting Thomas.  
  
"And she's probably dating him because he has her convinced that he'll be a big wheel in the ranks of the Death Eaters after he's through at Hogwarts."  
  
"Won't he be?"  
  
"You tell me. Who is the servant who sits at Voldemort's right hand in your timeline?"  
  
"I guess that would be Wormtail."  
  
Draco nodded. "Versus Lucius Malfoy, whom Voldemort could never trust again after he'd avoided Azkaban by pleading that he'd been under the _imperius_ curse."  
  
"So?"  
  
"So my father told me, and I'm sure that Lucius has convinced your timeline's Draco, that no-one outranks him in the Death Eaters. Now *that* is something you can use with him."  
  
Harry thought about it for a moment. "Disillusion him about his father?"  
  
Draco nodded. "If he's like I was, every third word out of his mouth's probably _my father._"  
  
Harry grinned. "At least."  
  
"He worships his father. Knock Lucius from that pedestal, and he'll be so lost he'll join your side immediately."  
  
"And how do I get him to believe me, rather than Lucius?"  
  
Draco sighed. "I don't know, Harry. I really don't know."  
  
REGULAR TIME  
  
Friday morning, Ron, Hermione and Harry walked into Potions class, dreading their first face-to-face confrontation with Snape.  
  
The Potions Master walked into the room, fixing the trio with a glare that could rival a basilisk's. "It's so nice to see you here today. I'm honored that you've decided to grace us with your presence. Would you care to tell me what was so important that you didn't even bother to come to class yesterday?"  
  
Harry shouldn't have been as surprised by this outburst as he was. He remembered how Snape had been in his first year. Before he and Draco truly became friends. Before Snape was re-introduced to Bill Weasley.   
  
Harry saw both Hermione and Ron blanch. Before they could stammer out an explanation, however, Harry, who'd been mulling over the romance of Severus Snape and Bill Weasley, went out on a limb. "The Hall of Records."  
  
Harry knew that he'd hit pay dirt when Snape paled. "What?"  
  
Harry continued, with more confidence. "We'd received a rather extensive letter from one of Ron's brothers about his search for the Hall of Records and we got so interested, that we completely lost track of time. You know how it is."  
  
Snape blanched even farther. "Yes. Quite." He sighed. "Well, twenty points from Gryffindor for each of you, and you'll have to do a detention tonight with Filch." He walked back towards the board in a daze.  
  
Ron leaned over towards Harry. "We got off easy. I was expecting him to promise him our first-born or something for skipping his class."  
  
Harry nodded shortly. "Professor Snape?"  
  
"Yes, Potter?"  
  
"Might I serve my detention this afternoon instead of tonight?" He ignored the confused mumbling of his friends.  
  
"If you do, you'll have to serve it with me." Snape fixed Harry with his coldest stare.   
  
"Yes, sir. I understand." Harry didn't flinch under Snape's austere gaze.  
  
"All right then. I'll see you after your final class of the afternoon. At 3:00."  
  
"Thank you, Professor Snape." Harry heard whispers of amazement from around the room.  
  
"What the hell were you doing, Harry?" Ron asked.  
  
"I the hell was trying to serve my detention myself and not stick your Harry with it. With any luck, we'll be changed back by this evening."  
  
After class, Snape called Harry to the front of the room. "I'd be interested in seeing that letter from Ron's brother." He said.  
  
_This run on successful lies is going to run out soon. But here goes anyway._ "Oh. Well, you see, it was on a one-time-only recording parchment. That's a big part of why we were late. We hadn't realized how long it was going to take and after we'd started it, we couldn't stop it." He made a helpless shrugging gesture.  
  
Snape pursed his lips suspiciously. "And which of Weasley's brothers was it who sent you this one-time-only recording parchment?"  
  
Harry smiled and said one word. "Bill."  
  
PARALLEL TIME  
  
Snape walked into the room, a broad grin on his face. "Well, the results are in." He informed them. "And you have unanimously voted that no-one could impart their knowledge of Potions as clearly as I can, and so you will *not* be having a substitute teacher while I'm on holiday."  
  
Harry heard pleased murmurs ripple through the classroom.  
  
"Yes, that's right. You can sleep in in the morning, you lazy slugabeds." Snape said with false seriousness. "Just remember, you'll still be responsible for next week's reading."  
  
"Now, for today's practical, I thought we'd do something a little more exciting than usual." He said, picking up a sheaf of parchment from his desk. "Each pair of you will be preparing a potion that does something different. He lifted up the top ten sheets from the stack and began to walk around the room, handing a sheet to each pair of students.   
  
Harry and Draco looked at their sheet and shrugged at each other. Roses, baking powder, vinegar . . . . The list went on that way. All in all, a strange set of ingredients.  
  
Harry turned to Ron and Hermione. "What do you have?" He asked.   
  
"Snake skin, parchment, one small prism, . . ." Ron shrugged. "Doesn't make any sense to me."  
  
"Anything," Snape said over the voices of his students, willing them to silence. "Anything you can't get here in my store of supplies should be easily found elsewhere on campus."  
  
Murmurs of amazement passed through the class. "Snape? Letting us roam the castle during class?"  
  
They all looked at him expectantly.  
  
"Well? What are you waiting for? Go!" He said, rolling his eyes.  
  
The seventh year Slytherin/Gryffindor class was out of the room with that. All except for Harry, that is. "Professor Snape?" Harry asked. "Are you sure they'll come back?"  
  
"Most of them will." Snape said. "And those who don't, well, they'll have questions on this on their final exam, won't they?" He winked - a decidedly un-Snapelike gesture.  
  
Draco stuck his head back into the room. "Harry, let's get going. This stuff isn't going to find itself, you know."  
  
Harry joined Draco in the hallway, and together they went out to search for ingredients.  
  
After they'd collected their ingredients, from the greenhouses, the kitchens, and anywhere else on campus they would be found, and then returned to the Potions classroom and set to work.  
  
Ron and Hermione were the only students who'd returned before Harry and Draco, and Snape was perched on the edge of Harry and Draco's table, talking to his future brother-in-law and his lab partner.   
  
When Harry and Draco came into the room, he moved over to lean against the wall next to their row of tables.   
  
"So, are you two ready for the wedding tomorrow?" He asked. "You've both got your robes, right? Do they fit?"  
  
Harry's eyes widened, and he swallowed hard. "Actually, Professor Snape," he began, and glanced back at Hermione and Ron.  
  
They silently encouraged him.  
  
"I don't feel right about this."  
  
Harry saw concern in the depths of Snape's black eyes. "Why not?"  
  
"Because," he paused, steeled himself, and started again. "Because I'm not your Harry Potter."  
  
"Then whose Harry Potter are you?" Snape asked in a surprisingly sincere tone.  
  
"I'm from a parallel timeline. One in which I don't get along with Severus Snape at all." Harry then proceeded to tell Snape all about his predicament, about the Window of Phemonoe charm, the wish he'd made to know how to defeat Voldemort, about the disappearance of this timeline's Harry, possibly into his own timeline.  
  
"Well," Snape said once Harry had finished. "Looks like only one thing to do."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Have you come to the wedding rehearsal anyway and stand in for Harry -- our timeline's Harry. I'm sure you want to get back to your own timeline, and hopefully we'll accomplish it in time for our timeline's Harry to stand up in the wedding."  
  
"And if we don't trade back in time?"  
  
Snape gave Harry a warm half-smile. "Then I guess you'll stand up in the wedding."  
  
Snape walked away, then, because most of the rest of the students had filtered into the room.  
  
What followed was the best Potions class of Harry's life.   
  
The parchments that Snape had handed out at the beginning of the class had been 'trick' potions. All of them did something unusual, yet fun. Harry and Draco's caused a fountain of flowers to spill from their cauldron and across their table. Ron and Hermione had a potion that erupted into paper streamers in every conceivable color. Drops of Seamus and Dean's potion turned into fancy designer Belgian chocolates. Even Neville and Parvati's potion was a success -- turning their cauldron into a bottomless punch bowl.  
  
At the end of class, Snape handed out scrolls to each of the students, warning them that the party-potions they'd done just *might* turn up on the exam.   
  
As Harry, Draco, Ron and Hermione left the room, Snape called after them. "We'll be meeting outside of the Great Hall at 3:00."


	7. 7

Unfogging the Future - Chapter 7  
By: PepperjackCandy   
Rating: PG13 Disclaimer: You recognize it? It's J.K. Rowling's.   
Warning: Slash ahead. If the idea of boys snogging and/or talking about romance with boys (or thought of a same-sex wedding) offends you, turn back now, before it's too late.

A/N: Evenstar, Alynnia, and anyone I missed who noticed the 3:00 thing, it was just in aid of me being able to continue carrying the action back and forth from one Harry to the other.

=============  
  
REGULAR TIME  
  
"I'm here for my detention, Professor Snape."   
  
Snape looked up from marking papers, his eyes appraising Harry coolly. Without a word, he stood and walked to the other side of the room.   
  
"The idiots at the supply company sent me whole beetle wings. Your detention," He smiled wickedly. "Is to pulverize them for me."  
  
He opened the door of his supply cabinet and saw a jar nearly a meter tall and probably close to that in circumference, full of whole beetle wings.   
  
"Oh. And to keep them pure for potions work, they must be pulverized by hand." With a sadistic smile, he handed a small mortar and pestle to Harry. The mortar was about the size of a teacup.  
  
"No magic, huh?" Harry asked, feigning disappointment.  
  
"No." Snape said with satisfaction.  
  
"All right."   
  
"And," he sneered, "just in case you think about cutting corners, I'll take your wand." Snape extended a hand, and Harry calmly handed his wand to him.  
  
Snape walked back to his desk, muttering confusedly.  
  
Harry had many hours of experience preparing potion ingredients with his timeline's Snape, admittedly under more pleasant conditions than this, and his timeline's Snape had taught him a way around the 'no magic' rule. He didn't even need a wand for it. He simply concentrated, whispered a couple of words, and set to work. The incantation he'd used would double his muscular strength and triple his endurance, so that he could get the grinding done with one-sixth the effort Snape expected him to expend.  
  
Trying to make it look like more work than it was, Harry got started.  
  
PARALLEL TIME  
  
Harry was extremely nervous as he waited with Ron, Hermione and Ginny in the ground floor corridor. However, he felt better once they were joined by Snape and Draco and Snape didn't immediately demand to know why Harry was there.   
  
"Hagrid has kindly lent us several of his carriages," Snape said as they stepped out into the bright afternoon sunlight.   
  
"Several?" Harry asked, wondering if they were each going separately.  
  
"The rehearsal dinner's going to be here. In the Great Hall. We need to bring Bill and all of the other Weasleys back here for it, so we'll need a few extra carriages." Draco explained.  
  
They stepped outside, where four carriages sat at the base of the steps. Snape, Ron, Hermione and Ginny got into the front carriage, and Harry and Draco got into the second one. "But," Harry said, "how will the other two come along, if there's no-one in them?"  
  
"They're probably charmed to follow us." Draco said.  
  
"You don't like this, do you? Being alone with me like this. I mean, it should be your Harry here with you."  
  
Draco snorted dismissively. "Don't worry about it, Harry. I like being with you."  
  
"You do?" He was embarrassed when he realized that he was entirely too pleased by this bit of news. "I mean . . ."  
  
He never got the chance to explain what he meant, because just then the carriage lurched forward and they were on their way to Hogsmeade.  
  
REGULAR TIME  
  
"I'm done with the first batch, Professor Snape." Harry said in as inoffensive a tone as he could manage.   
  
Snape sniffed and stood, peering into the mortar. Harry saw his lips tighten and thin, as he looked, enraged, at the perfectly-pulverized wings. Wordlessly, he took the mortar from Harry and put it on the countertop, waving his wand over it as he mumbled incantations under his breath. But the wings came up clean. Harry hadn't used any magic in pulverizing them. Snape's lips thinned further. "Very well." He silently dumped the wings into the empty jar he'd set out for that purpose and handed the mortar back to Harry.  
  
Trying to resist the temptation to smile in triumph, Harry picked up the next few wings and set to pulverizing.  
  
PARALLEL TIME  
  
"Well, since we're here for a while, why don't you tell me how you defeated Voldemort?" Harry asked.  
  
"I . . . don't know if I can do that."   
  
"Why not?"  
  
"Well, you know the rule about time travel right? About not telling people in the past about their futures?"  
  
They'd covered this in Defense Against the Dark Arts in sixth year. "Right . . ."   
  
"Well, if all goes well, my present, in a way, will be your future. And I'm afraid that I might doom you to defeat if I give you too much information."  
  
Harry sighed. "I guess you're right."  
  
"I know I'm right."  
  
"Isn't there anything you can tell me? Strategy hints or something?"  
  
Draco stared out the window for a long minute.  
  
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked."   
"No. That's all right." Draco insisted. "I'm just thinking."  
  
He paused again, considering. "All right. I can tell you one thing. There's only one weapon capable of killing Voldemort, and that is why you need your timeline's Draco Malfoy."  
  
"Thank you." Harry said. "I think that'll be a great help."  
  
"It should be." Draco said in a teasing tone. "It's more than we had to go on."  
  
They were just pulling into Hogsmeade then, so Draco decided to add one more thing. "Oh. And I've always had a particular fondness for pumpkin pasties."  
  
REGULAR TIME  
  
Harry had pulverized another two mortarsful of wings when Snape finally spoke. "So, what interest does Bill Weasley have in the Hall of Records?"  
  
He had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. _One, two, three,_ he continued grinding the wings. When he reached _ten,_ he shrugged. "Ron just told me that's why he took the job at Gringott's. He works in Egypt, and since he's right there . . ."  
  
"Oh." Snape nodded. "That makes sense."  
  
Harry continued pulverizing the beetle wings, hoping he'd just planted the seeds that would save this timeline's Severus Snape from his own bitterness.  
  
PARALLEL TIME  
  
They arrived at the chapel in Hogsmeade and Harry faced the counterparts of his other friends - Arthur, Molly, Bill, Charlie, Percy and Fred and George Weasley. He drew strength from Draco's support as he greeted each of them, hoping they wouldn't notice that he was the wrong Harry Potter.   
  
They proceeded to begin the wedding rehearsal. Draco was to be Snape's best man, and Charlie was to be Bill's. Snape's other attendants were to be Harry, George and Ginny. On Bill's side, next to Charlie was Percy, then Fred, then Ron. Everyone, except Fred and George, agreed that the wisest course was to keep Fred and George on opposite sides of the sanctuary for the duration of the ceremony.  
  
They practiced the processional, with Ginny and Ron walking in first, then Fred and George, followed by Harry and Percy and finally Draco and Charlie. After they were all lined up on their respective sides of the apse, Arthur came in accompanying Bill, then Hermione filling in for the absent Professor Dumbledore, escorting Snape.  
  
The vicar walked Arthur and Hermione through the process of giving their blessing to Bill and Snape's union, and then Arthur and Hermione sat.   
  
As the vicar began to speak on how the ceremony would progress, Harry had his first chance to watch Snape and Bill together. He had never seen the Potions Master happy, and the sheer joy in his eyes as he gazed at his fiance absolutely floored him. And Bill, likewise, was gazing at Snape as if Snape was the best thing to ever happen to him. He'd never seen such love between two people -- not even Molly and Arthur, whose love had a more mature, settled air by the time Harry had met them, lacking the elation of Bill and Snape's devotion.  
  
The vicar instructed them to hold right hands, and as they clasped hands, it was obvious to Harry that everyone else in the world suddenly ceased to exist for the couple.   
  
And, apparently, the vicar noticed, as well. He cleared his throat. "Excuse me, you two. If I could have your full, *undivided* attention."   
  
The Weasleys laughed indulgently as Bill and even Snape blushed brightly. "Sorry, Reverend." Bill said, flushing even more brightly. "You were saying?"  
  
The vicar returned to his explanation, and this time, Snape and Bill paid close attention, standing when he told them to stand, kneeling when he told them to kneel. Draco and Charlie mimicked giving the rings to them, and they practiced exchanging wedding rings.  
  
The vicar was just winding up. "And then I'll begin the final blessing, _God the Father,_ . . ."   
  
He was interrupted when the door to the chapel slammed shut. A young redhaired woman walked slowly up the aisle, biting her lips nervously as she approached.  
  
Harry wondered who the young woman could be? The red hair meant she had to be a Weasley. Perhaps she was a cousin?  
  
He saw varying expressions on the faces of the Weasley family, ranging from hope, to confusion, to stark fury.   
  
Finally, she reached the front of the church and addressed Bill directly, speaking three words that shocked Harry more than any others she could have spoken.   
  
"Hello, big brother." 


	8. 8

Unfogging the Future - Chapter 8  
By: PepperjackCandy   
Rating: PG13  
Disclaimer: You recognize it? It's J.K. Rowling's.  
  
Warning: Slash ahead. If the idea of boys snogging and/or talking about romance with boys offends you, turn back now, before it's too late.  
  
=============  
  
PARALLEL TIME  
  
What happened next passed too quickly to follow. George leaped at the red-haired stranger, growling something unintelligible. Harry grabbed George's arm, pulling him back, but George, or his fury, was too strong.   
  
Draco threw himself into George's path. "_Stupefy!_"  
  
George fell to the floor in a heap, and Harry was finally able to turn his attention back to the red-haired stranger who'd just walked in to find that she was surrounded by squabbling, yelling Weasleys. Harry couldn't make out a word of what they said.  
  
"Quiet!" Snape yelled, shooting a flare spell from the end of his wand.  
  
Everyone fell silent, their eyes huge in the glare of the wand.  
  
The young woman looked at Snape. "Good afternoon, Professor Snape." She said with quiet self-confidence.  
  
"Tell us the meaning of this interruption, Weasley." Snape responded coolly.  
  
"I came to try to make things right between us again, Bill," the redhead said, addressing the other groom.  
  
"El, you know it's not that easy." Bill responded.  
  
"It could be. I was wrong. I'm sorry." For whatever it was worth, Harry believed her. He could feel her desperation.  
  
The effects of Draco's _stupefy_ hex started wearing off, and George sat up, groggy. "It really is her." He mumbled, but before he could get a good head of steam worked up, Fred had crossed the room and had placed a hand gently on his twin's shoulder, seeming to draw the wrath from George.  
  
The Weasleys drew closer together, then, their voices falling below Harry's range of hearing.  
  
Harry turned to Draco, an inquiring expression on his face. They were immediately joined by Hermione, who clearly needed the same explanation he did. Draco drew them outside through a side door.  
  
It was still a beautiful fall afternoon and the trio sat on the lawn in front of the church. "That," Draco told them, "was Eleanor Weasley, Hogwarts class of 1990. Slytherin House."  
  
REGULAR TIME  
  
Harry left the Potions classroom -- he'd forgotten that the pre-Bill Weasley Snape had a bit of a sadistic streak, and when Harry hadn't seemed distressed by Snape's choice of activity, Snape had sent him away.  
  
Harry thought about his own timeline's Snape, and the happiness he'd found, against all odds, with Bill Weasley. Their wedding was the next day. In fact, they were probably having their wedding rehearsal at that moment. . .   
  
He was so caught up in thoughts of Snape and Bill, that he as he rounded the last corner before the stairs that led to the ground floor, he ran smack into this timeline's Draco Malfoy.  
  
"Watch where you're going, Potter." Draco snarled.  
  
"Why don't you watch where you're going?" Harry responded distractedly, thinking bitterly how odd it was to be so close to the man he loved, and yet so far away from him.   
  
Something almost like concern flitted across Draco's face. "You all right, Potter?"   
  
"Yeah. Fine." Harry lied shortly.   
  
He could see that Draco didn't believe him and watched the Slytherin shaking his concern from his head. "Whatever. See you around. Potter." He said as he continued down the corridor toward the entrance to the Slytherin common room.  
  
PARALLEL TIME  
  
Harry blanched, shaking his head slowly from side to side. "No. No. This just. No."  
  
"What is it?" Draco asked, his face concerned.  
  
"We're wrong. This timeline isn't anything like mine."  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"Because, there's only seven Weasleys. And only one girl. Ginny. I've never heard of an Eleanor Weasley. Especially not one who only graduated two years before we started."  
  
Draco's expression relaxed into a smile. "Oh. Is that all?"  
  
Harry was affronted. "Is that all? Isn't it enough?"  
  
Hermione interrupted. "Harry. This is no proof that there's that big a difference between the timelines. I didn't know about this Eleanor either."  
  
Draco nodded. "Her existence is a sort of open secret in the wizarding community, but both of you were raised among Muggles. It's sort of like the Longbottoms. All of the adults know what happened to them, but no-one really talks about it. You see, El got Sorted into Slytherin and, from what I've heard, things got a little tense between her and her brothers. Let me see, that'd be Charlie, Percy and the twins, I think. They're the ones who overlapped with her for some of her time at school."  
  
He shrugged. "Well, apparently Molly and Arthur took the boys' side, since the Hat Sorted them into Molly and Arthur's old House, and so El broke off contact with the rest of the family. Of course, even though we didn't have any time together at Hogwarts, being a Slytherin, I heard tales of her . . . exploits. It's no wonder she and her brothers were at odds. By all accounts, she was a formidable witch, and a dangerous enemy."   
  
"And she was a dangerous friend, too, if you got in her way when she was after something." Harry was startled to hear the silky voice of the Potions Master behind him. Soon, Snape gracefully folded himself to the ground in their circle. "At least, I assume you were talking about Miss Weasley?"  
  
The trio of students nodded. "But - " Harry began, then he stopped.  
  
Snape turned to Harry. "Go on," He said in an encouraging tone.  
  
"Well, I don't think there was an Eleanor Weasley in my timeline. I mean, Ron always talks about there being seven children in his family, and Mrs. Weasley's clock only has nine hands on it. Ginny's always going on about being the only girl, too."  
  
"Ginny was only a little girl when Eleanor left for Hogwarts. She was probably still a baby." Draco supplied. "So I'd bet she'd consider herself to be the only girl. Especially after El got sorted into Slytherin and all."  
  
Snape nodded. "She didn't even go home for end-of-term break after the first few years. It made her uncomfortable to be in a house full of Gryffindors, so that could account for ."   
  
The three students nodded, showing their understanding of the situation.   
  
"Well," Snape said. "They seem to have reached a truce and so they sent me out to get the three of you so that we can get this rehearsal going again."  
  
With that, the quartet stood and walked back into the church together.   
  
=============  
  
A/N: In a way, Eleanor Weasley was inspired by Erec from A'jes' Blue's [_Catharsis_][1] and following stories. I came up with the idea upon reading the summary for _Catharsis_ in which it mentions that Ron's a seventh son. At first, I thought about that same gap in the Weasley offspring and adding another son who'd be the "black sheep" of the family, but as she walked into the sanctuary of the church in Hogsmeade, I realized she was a daughter. Upon noticing that 71% (5 out of 7) Weasleys have royal names (William, Charles, Frederick, George, and Virginia (since the state of Virginia was named after Elizabeth I, the "Virgin Queen")), I started looking through queenly names and was inspired when I saw a reference to Eleanor of Aquitaine.  
  
This is going to take up some space, but here's a rough idea of how the *eight* Weasley siblings work out in terms of name (year of birth) and time at Hogwarts:  
  
Bill (1967) 1978-1985  
Charlie (1969) 1980-1987  
Eleanor (1972) 1983-1990  
Percy (1976) 1987-1994  
Twins (1978) 1989-1996  
Ron (1980) 1991-1998  
Ginny (1981) 1992-1999

   [1]: http://www.fanfiction.net/index.fic?action=story-read&storyid=219124



	9. 9

Unfogging the Future - Chapter 9  
By: PepperjackCandy   
Rating: PG13  
Disclaimer: You recognize it? It's J.K. Rowling's. Eleanor Weasley is my creation.  
  
Warning: Slash ahead. If the idea of boys snogging and/or talking about romance with boys offends you, turn back now, before it's too late. More mentions of same-sex marriage in this one, folks.   
  
=============  
  
REGULAR TIME  
  
Harry nearly ran to the Gryffindor boys' seventh year dorm, and threw himself onto Harry's bed, covering his head with the pillow.  
  
"Harry?" In any timeline, Harry would recognize the voice of Ron Weasley, his best friend.  
  
"Yeah?" His voice was muffled by the pillow over his head.  
  
"What are you doing?"  
  
"Hiding."  
  
"Oh. Good. I was afraid you were doing something stupid." Harry could hear Ron rolling his eyes as he said this.  
  
"I saw him."  
  
"Who?" Ron paused. "Oh. Malfoy. You see him every day."  
  
Harry lifted the pillow and fixed Ron with a glare.   
  
"What?"  
  
"I mean that I *saw* him. Up close. Face. To. Face."  
  
"Oh."  
  
"Yes. Oh. I didn't know what to do. Should I hit him? Kiss him? Or just shake him until his teeth rattled?"  
  
"I'd vote for all of the above. Except the kissing part." Ron shuddered involuntarily.   
"You know you might just have to put up with that. Well, with your Harry."  
  
"Just as long as it's not me." Ron chuckled.  
  
Laughing, Harry thwapped his pillow playfully at his friend's head.   
  
"Hey!" In one deft movement, Ron grabbed his pillow from his own bed and heaved it at Harry, who reciprocated in kind and for a while, Draco Malfoy was the last thing Harry thought about.  
  
PARALLEL TIME  
  
The rest of the rehearsal went without a hitch, or at least without any more long-lost relatives turning up, and soon they were released to return to Hogwarts for the rehearsal dinner.  
  
"Dinner's still going on at school." Snape said, glancing up at the clock tower on the church, "so there's really no rush. Anyone for a trip to the Three Broomsticks?"  
  
Harry had been surprised to see Snape happy. But that was nothing to the surprise he felt when he watched Snape holding his own in the raucous Weasley family at the Hogsmeade tavern. Fred and George joked good naturedly -- good naturedly! -- with their future brother-in-law, while Molly and Arthur related embarrassing stories of Bill's childhood. The only Weasley who didn't seem to be enjoying herself was Eleanor, who was instead watching Harry.  
  
She stood and made her way to the table that Harry, Draco and Hermione shared. "Hi." She said. "Mind if I join you?"  
  
As if they'd discussed it among themselves, the trio slid their chairs around to make room for Eleanor to bring over a fourth.  
  
"So. I don't think I've met any of you." Eleanor opened the conversation. "Though I think I know who all of you are, if only by reputation." She glanced around the table. "You're Draco Malfoy, the toast of Slytherin. You are Harry Potter, the boy who defeated Voldemort the first time, and who, with Malfoy's help, defeated him the second time. Which means that you must be Hermione Granger, the one who's keeping my littlest brother's grades afloat."  
  
Harry was the first to respond. "Actually, Draco defeated Voldemort himself, with my help. Or so they tell me."  
  
"So they tell you?" Eleanor repeated back.  
  
Harry saw the brief panic flit across Draco's face, and it was enough. _Damn. I've been so thrown off balance by Snape and Draco, that I completely forgot that some Slytherins still might be . . . Slytherins._ "It was a difficult time for me, I can't remember a lot of it." He lied making eye contact with Draco.  
  
"Yeah." Draco added. "Harry'd been through a lot. When I finally . . . dispatched Voldemort, he wasn't aware of anything."  
  
_Damn!_ Harry swore silently. _I was hoping he'd let some little detail slip._  
  
"Ah. So I hear that the two of you," Eleanor looked from Harry to Draco, "might be the next ones standing in front of the church doors, so to speak?"  
  
Harry was nonplussed by this, but Draco responded with his usual poise. "There's nothing I'd want more than to marry Harry." He looked down into Harry's eyes. "But we haven't really talked about it yet."  
  
_Why not?_ Harry demanded silently. _If Draco were mine, I'd . . . ._ He felt himself blushing at this line of thought, so he broke eye contact and stared down into his butterbeer instead.  
  
REGULAR TIME  
  
Harry, Ron and Hermione left the Great Hall together, Harry having picked at his food through another meal. "What am I going to do?" He lamented. "I'm *never* going to go home again."  
  
"You'll go home. I'm sure of it." Hermione said in her best self-assured tone, which both Harry and Ron recognized as being the one she used when she was trying to reassure them of something she wasn't so sure of herself.  
  
But Harry took it in the way it was offered. "Thanks, Hermione." He smiled at her.  
  
"It's a Hogsmeade weekend." Ron reminded them. "That ought to take your mind off of it, at least."  
  
All Ron did with this, though, was remind Harry that the next day was Bill and Snape's wedding. They'd scheduled it specifically because it was a Hogsmeade weekend. That way, Ron, Ginny, Harry, Draco and Hermione could all get away for the wedding without giving them any special privileges. It would also allow any other students who wanted to attend the chance to get away.   
  
By sheer force of will, Harry was able to take Ron's comment the way it was intended. "Yeah. It'll be nice to get away." He smiled wanly, hoping that it would convince his friends.  
  
Then she sighed and made eye contact with Ron. "Well, *you* may have already served your detention, but Ron and I still have ours. Keep your chin up," and then she added in a conspiratorial tone, "and if worst comes to worst with Malfoy, I can always teach you the time-honored tradition of playing hard-to-get." She winked as she and Ron headed off to their dreaded Filch detention.   
  
=============  
  
A/N: I hope that first paragraph is clear enough. I had to play around a bit, since one Harry was going up to the other Harry's bed and all.


	10. 10

Unfogging the Future - Chapter 10  
By: PepperjackCandy   
Rating: PG13  
Disclaimer: You recognize it? It's J.K. Rowling's. Eleanor Weasley is my creation.  
  
Warning: Slash ahead. If the idea of boys snogging and/or talking about romance with boys offends you, turn back now, before it's too late. And more than just mentions of same-sex marriage in this one, 'cause it's same-sex wedding time!   
  
=============  
  
PARALLEL TIME  
  
The Snape/Weasley wedding party had stayed awake until very early into the morning, and Harry and Ron finally returned to the seventh year Gryffindor boys' dorm with only a few hours to sleep.   
  
They had fallen into their beds head-first and had only awakened after Seamus and Dean had allowed Ginny up to annoy them awake.  
  
"Harry . . ." She tickled his ear gently. "Wake up."   
  
She sighed and poked him with her wand. "It's time to get up, Harry." She said in a firmer tone.  
  
Harry was perilously close to the edge of his bed and she pushed him even closer. That did it. Harry's preternatural sense of danger woke him with a start.   
  
"Wha --!" He exclaimed as he sat bolt upright.   
  
"It's time to get dressed for the wedding." She said pointedly as she moved to Ron's bed and repeated her tactics with him. Only this time they didn't work, and Ron fell to the floor with a thud.   
  
"Is he all right?" Harry asked.  
  
Ginny kneeled on the floor at her brother's side and put her ear to his chest. "He's alive."  
  
Suddenly, Harry grinned wickedly. "I've got an idea." He grabbed Ron's right arm and leg, and indicated for Ginny to take his left arm and leg. Together they carried him, still dressed in his nightshirt, into the bathroom, where they placed him in a sitting position against the wall of one of the shower stalls and turned the water on.  
  
"Argh!" Ron yelled, as he began spluttering angrily, water running down his face.   
  
Ginny giggled, and Harry, trying to suppress a smile, directed her out of the bathroom, preparing to take the brunt of his friend's temper himself.  
  
"Harry!" Ron exclaimed, fury in his tone.  
  
"We have to leave for the wedding soon. We tried everything we could to wake you, but it just wasn't working."  
  
Ron collected himself. "Well, at least I've got the shower over with. Now we just have to find out where our dress robes are stashed, and *I'm* ready to go."  
  
With that, Harry bustled off to the bedroom to get his shower supplies.  
  
REGULAR TIME  
  
"Harry Potter. For the last time, *stop* staring at the Slytherin table." Hermione said in her most McGonagall-esque voice.  
  
Harry sighed and turned his attention back to the plain dry white toast in front of him. His appetite was even worse than usual and he hadn't even been able to stomach that. "I feel like my right arm's been amputated." He said morosely. "There's so much I want to do, but I just *can't*."  
  
Hermione sighed. "Looks like I'm going to have to give you those lessons after all."   
  
"In, what was it again?"  
  
"Playing hard-to-get." She said with a wink. "If you pretend that he doesn't matter, it'll drive him batty."  
  
PARALLEL TIME  
  
"Harry!" Ron yelled from the doorway of the boys' dorm as Harry hurriedly scribbled a message on a piece of parchment.  
  
"Just a minute. I'm almost done." Harry responded testily, trying his best not to dribble ink on the dress robe he was wearing. He didn't think that a large black blotch would do anything for the appearance of the jade-green robe he was wearing.   
  
Ron sighed testily.  
  
"Just finishing . . . now." Harry signed his name and after casting a quick drying charm on the note, stuck the piece of parchment under the pillow. _I don't know when we'll switch back, but whenever we do, that note'll be waiting for the other Harry._  
  
He stood and together, he and Ron walked down to meet Ginny and Hermione in the Gryffindor common room.  
  
REGULAR TIME  
  
Harry, Ron and Hermione walked to Hogsmeade in companionable silence. Ron was thinking about visiting the Hogsmeade branch of Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes and seeing how his brothers' latest projects were turning out. Hermione was wondering if she'd be able to find all of the supplies she needed for her term project in Charms. Harry was trying *not* to think of Draco Malfoy.  
  
_It's a beautiful autumn day._ He burbled inconsequentially into the silence in his mind. _The birds are singing, the leaves are falling from the trees, the sun is shining like Draco's eyes when we kiss . . . _  
  
_Damn._ Sigh. _I'm on my way to Hogsmeade with my two best friends. Sort of. Close enough, anyway. And we're going to drink butterbeer in the Three Broomsticks, and . . ._  
  
Harry's thoughts continued on in this vein for quite some time, until a very unfamiliar familiar voice broke into his thoughts.   
  
"Hey, Potty."   
  
"Heh. Potty. Good one, Malfoy."   
  
"Shut. Up. Goyle."  
  
"Oh. Sorry Malfoy."  
  
As they'd discussed earlier, the three friends continued walking, pretending that they didn't hear a word of Draco and Goyle's exchange.  
  
"What's the matter, Weasel? Cat got your tongue?"  
  
Silence.  
  
"How about you, Granger? Certainly a know-it-all mudblood like you's got something to say."  
  
Harry held his breath, hoping that Ron wouldn't rise to the bait. Then he let his breath out slowly as he realized that Ron was counting to one hundred under his breath, as they'd agreed, to keep his temper in check.  
  
Draco moved into Harry's line of vision, then, and he saw the blond Slytherin nod at his two goons, who sped up and stuck a leg between Hermione's and Ron's legs, attempting to trip them. The two Gryffindors neatly adjusted their gait to compensate and kept walking. Harry silently blessed Hermione's impulse that caused her to suggest that they cast _stabilis_ charms on themselves against just this sort of thing.  
  
Draco sighed petulantly. "This is no fun. Let's get moving, then."   
  
Draco, Crabbe and Goyle sped up, then, leaving Harry, Ron and Hermione far behind.  
  
PARALLEL TIME  
  
After the four Gryffindors walked down to the ground floor, they met up with most of the rest of the Weasleys -- Bill, Charlie and Eleanor had spent the night in rooms above the Three Broomsticks -- and Draco. Soon they were joined by Snape and Dumbledore, who carried their dress robes in leather garment bags, and the party climbed into Hagrid's horseless carriages and set off for Hogsmeade.  
  
Once they'd arrived at the Hogsmeade village church, Snape and Dumbledore retired into a room to put on their dress robes. When they emerged, Harry was stunned by the Potions Master's appearance. He was wearing a pseudo-Chinese styled robe in a soft white color with a Mandarin collar and wide bell-shaped sleeves. He gave Harry and Draco a warm smile as he walked up to them. "Since you're my best man," he said to Draco, "it's your job to hang onto this for me." He held out a gold ring that glinted in the light coming in through the windows.   
  
Draco took it proudly, then as Snape went to speak with Dumbledore about something, his expression changed to one of slight confusion as he weighed the ring in his hand.  
  
"Put it on your little finger?" Harry suggested dubiously.   
  
Draco slipped the ring onto his pinkie, and looked down at it. Then he nodded. "Seems good enough. Just as long as I don't have to do anything too . . . athletic until after the exchange of rings." He winked at Harry, and made Harry blush.   
  
As they stood in the entryway to the sanctuary, students, faculty, and assorted others whose red hair marked them as Weasleys, filed between them into the sanctuary, where the students and faculty sat on Snape's side, and the Weasleys sat on Bill's.   
  
Eventually, Bill and Charlie arrived, Charlie wearing a robe that matched Draco's - a more ornate robe from the same jade green cloth as the rest of the attendants', and Bill wore a robe identical in every way to Snape's.   
  
_Makes sense,_ Harry thought, _with no 'bride' and 'groom,' they probably *should* wear the same thing._  
  
Then, as the clock in the church tower tolled eleven, the processional began.  
  
REGULAR TIME  
  
Hermione, Ron and Harry had already visited Zonko's and Honeyduke's and as the clock in the church tower tolled eleven, they approached the bridge that spanned the river that wound through town. They leaned on the low wall that lined the bridge and looked out into the water, digging through their candy bags.  
  
Harry reached into his bag of licorice all-the-other-sorts, pulled out a chunk of licorice brittle, and bit into it.  
  
"My father," Harry heard the drawling voice of Draco behind him, projecting just a little louder than usual, "sacked his butler this week."  
  
Hermione leaned towards Harry and asked in a completely normal tone, "Can I have a bite of your licorice brittle?"  
  
"Sure." Harry handed the piece of brittle to her and watched as she bit some off.  
  
"After all," Draco was nearly yelling by now, "Dobby was a better butler than that *squib* he'd hired."  
  
"That was good." Hermione said nonchalantly. "I should have picked some of that up while I was there."  
  
"We could always go back and get some." Ron offered.  
  
Harry could almost hear Draco fuming silently behind them. Then, with an audible sniff, the Slytherin turned and left, the heavy footsteps of his two bodyguards following him off the bridge.  
  
The trio silently grinned at each other.  
  
PARALLEL TIME  
  
The processional had ended, and the Weasleys and the faculty of Hogwarts gave their blessing to the union of William Weasley and Severus Snape. Bill and Severus had joined hands, and were gazing lovingly at each other when suddenly Harry realized how he could convince his timelines' Draco to believe his story that Lucius was lying to him about his position in the Death Eaters.  
  
He nudged Draco. "I've got it. A pensieve." He whispered.  
  
Draco looked down at him.  
  
"You can't lie in a pensieve. Draco'll have to believe me."  
  
Draco's eyes lit up and he nodded. "That just might work." He mouthed silently as the world around Harry suddenly faded to black.  
  
=============  
  
A/N: I say that Snape's and Bill's wedding robes were "pseudo"-Chinese, because white is a traditional funeral color in China. The traditional wedding color is red, but I just couldn't see putting Bill and Snape in red. Particularly not with Bill's coloring. ;-)  
  
Also, the matching white robes thing was in part inspired by my high school home ec teacher, who once lamented that women traditionally wear white (to symbolize virginity) while men traditionally wear black (the color of mourning) in the U.S. Now, I'm not saying that either Snape or Bill are virgins, necessarily, but since not many brides who marry in white are nowadays either . . .  
  
And I don't know if you can lie in a pensieve, but it makes sense to me that if you use it to examine your own memories, you wouldn't want to be able to lie in it, so they'd be made so that you can't.


	11. 11

Unfogging the Future - Chapter 11  
By: PepperjackCandy   
Rating: PG13  
Disclaimer: You recognize it? It's J.K. Rowling's. Eleanor Weasley is my creation.  
  
Warning: Slash ahead. If the idea of boys snogging and/or talking about romance with boys offends you, turn back now, before it's too late. And more same-sex wedding in this one.  
  
=============  
  
REGULAR TIME  
  
Harry swayed and strong arms caught him.   
  
"Easy, there, Harry." He heard Ron's voice say in his ear.  
  
_Ron? But Ron's on Bill's side. . ._ Harry realized the blackness had abated. He was standing between Ron and Hermione on a bridge. When he looked over Ron's right shoulder, he saw the Hogsmeade village church in the distance. There was a bag from Honeyduke's on the ground at his feet.  
  
"Harry? Your robes. . ." Hermione said softly, looking at the jade-green dress robe he was wearing.  
  
"Harry?" Ron grabbed his shoulders and looked into his eyes.  
  
Suddenly, Harry felt himself crushed by his two best friends who were hugging him vigorously.  
  
"It is you, isn't it, Harry?" Hermione asked.  
  
Harry nodded dumbly. "I think so." He noticed he was still wearing his dress robes from Bill and Snape's wedding. He picked up the Honeyduke's bag and began to walk towards the church.  
  
He could hear Ron calling out his name behind him. When he didn't respond, Ron and Hermione followed him.  
  
Harry opened the doors of the church, stepping in carefully. He could see the open sanctuary doors from where he stood, and could clearly see that the sanctuary was deserted. He stood for a moment as he realized that he really had changed timelines again, and wondered what had made the difference.  
  
Then remembering the plans he and Draco had made, he crinkled the Honeyduke's bag. "I've got to make a stop at Honeyduke's," he told them, "and then I think I'd better get back to Hogwarts and change back into a school robe."  
  
PARALLEL TIME  
  
Harry felt someone grab him, stopping him in his descent towards the ground. Harry looked up and saw Draco beaming down at him in a truly unsettling way. "What are you doing, Malfoy?" He asked shortly.  
  
"Harry?" Draco asked in a tone tinged with concern. "Are you all right?"  
  
Harry stood upright again and looked around. He wasn't on the bridge any more - he was standing at the front of the Hogsmeade village church. He looked at Draco, breaking out in a joyful grin. "I'm home!" He whispered.  
  
Draco smiled back, tears gathering in his silver eyes. "Yes, you are." He gathered Harry into his arms and they hugged each other tightly.   
  
"Ahem. If you don't mind . . ." The voice of the vicar interrupted them.   
  
"Oh. Sorry, reverend." Draco said as they hastily broke their embrace and returned to their places.   
  
The vicar continued the ceremony, "Will you, the families and friends of Severus and William, support and uphold them in their marriage now and in the years to come?"  
  
"We will," the assembled congregation said in unison, Harry and Draco glancing at each other and smiling as they spoke the words.   
  
REGULAR TIME  
  
Four pumpkin pasties protected with an EverFresh charm sat securely in Harry's pocket as they returned to Hogwarts. Along the way, he fretted silently about what Eleanor Weasley meant to his mission. _If Eleanor does exist in my timeline, then everything's all right. If she doesn't, then, I guess it's down to how close she came to existing. Mrs. Weasley could have been pregnant, and lost the baby. That might not make too big a difference for Draco and me, but what if there was never an Eleanor in any way? What if she wasn't conceived in this timeline because Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were having trouble? Or they were separated geographically?_  
  
"Harry?" Ron's voice broke his train of thought.  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"What's the matter? You've been awfully quiet ever since we left Hogsmeade." This came from Hermione.   
  
"Nothing's the matter." He lied. "It's just that hopping timelines like this gives one . . . a lot to think about."  
  
"Well, if that's all it is . . ." Hermione said dubiously.  
  
Harry nodded. "It is." Then he paused. "Ron? Can I talk to you privately for a moment?"  
  
Ron and Hermione exchanged surprised looks. "Sure."  
  
Ron and Harry crossed to the right-hand side of the road, leaving Hermione on the left-hand side.  
  
"How many children are there in your family?"  
  
Ron looked at his friend like he'd gone insane. "Seven. Bill, Charlie, Percy, Fred and George, Ginny, and me."  
  
"Are you sure?"  
  
"Of course I'm sure!"  
  
Harry sighed. "That's what I was afraid of."  
  
Ron shot his friend another look of concern mixed with confusion and returned to Hermione's side.   
  
Harry continued in his thoughts all the way back to Hogwarts. He swore at himself for believing that it would be so easy to get his answers. He swore at the ritual for exchanging him with a timeline that had such a glaringly obvious difference. He prayed that the difference wouldn't affect the outcome of what he had to do.  
  
Finally, they were home. Hogwarts. And even though Harry had only left the castle a few hours earlier, he knew he'd never been so happy to see it in his life.  
  
"Hermione, you go on up to the common room. We'll catch up later." Ron said as he walked towards Harry.  
  
Harry braced himself for scathing words from his friend for his previous questions. Instead, Ron looked at Harry sadly, and said, "My parents have eight children. I have an elder sister named Eleanor, that no-one ever talks about anymore. She was born between Charlie and Percy. Please don't ever mention her again."  
  
Suddenly, the clouds above Harry opened and he could hear choirs of angels singing. He could have kissed Ron, but settled instead for hugging him. "Ron! That's the best news I've heard in days!" He said as he released his friend and together they walked into the castle.  
  
PARALLEL TIME  
  
It had been an eventful day, between hopping back home -- for Harry was certain that he was home now -- the wedding, and the festivities afterwards.   
  
Harry needed some time and space to come to grips with everything that had happened in the previous days, so kissing Draco on the cheek, he whispered, "I'll be right back," into his ear and left the Great Hall.  
  
He walked down the hallway, the cacophony of the wedding feast fading into the background, but he came to a halt when he heard an almost-familiar woman's voice calling him. "Harry! Harry Potter!"  
  
He turned. It was Eleanor Weasley, looking like some kind of Muggle romance novel heroine in a purple robe, her red hair falling around her shoulders in ringlets. In a few short strides, she had caught up to him.  
  
"So what was that all about?"  
  
"I just needed some fresh air." He protested.  
  
"Not that. That." She pointed to his Hogwarts school robe. "You *were* wearing the same dress robe as the other attendants, then suddenly, you're wearing that."  
  
She started to pace around him as she thought. "Then what was it you said when you collapsed? 'I'm home'?"  
  
Harry became increasingly uncomfortable under Eleanor's scrutiny. "What do you want, Eleanor?" He asked shortly.  
  
She shrugged. "I'm just wondering what happened, and if you're likely to do that sort of thing again."  
  
"Nothing happened, and even if it did, it wouldn't happen again." He responded in a tone daring her to prove him wrong.  
  
Charlie emerged then. "El! Mum and Dad are looking for you!"  
  
"Coming, Charlie!" Eleanor called out. "You play your cards close to your vest. I like that. You would have made a fine Slytherin." She winked at him and went to join her brother.  
  
Harry watched her go and continued his walk up towards the Gryffindor Tower. _I wonder what she's up to? Well, she's a Slytherin. Who knows what she's up to. And anyhow, together Draco and I defeated Voldemort. We can certainly handle Eleanor Weasley. Or anything else that life throws us.  
  
But that's just it. I got half my answer, that I'm useless without him. But what about him? Does he need me like I need him?_  
  
As he went through the portrait hole, he passed Neville who greeted him, but Harry was too caught up in his own thoughts for it to register.  
  
Soon he was standing outside the seventh year Gryffindor boys' dorm. He opened the door and walked to his bed. Everything looked just like he'd left it. Sighing, he threw himself onto his bed, and heard a crinkling sound as his head hit the pillow.  
  
He felt under the pillow and pulled out a rolled up piece of parchment. Unrolling it he read, in his own handwriting:  
  
_Harry --  
  
By the time you find this, I'll have returned to my own timeline. I hope. I think I have my own answer, which is that I need Draco Malfoy by my side to defeat Voldemort.   
  
I don't know what your question was, but I want you to take this into account. Draco Malfoy loves you with everything he has. He would do anything, give up everything for you.  
  
He wants and deserves a permanent commitment from you, and if you aren't interested, then feel free to send him over to my timeline. I won't turn him away.  
  
Harry_  
  
Harry sat for a minute, tracing the line _Draco Malfoy loves you with everything he has_ for a minute. This letter was his answer. And it was an answer that filled him with an inexpressible joy.   
  
Smiling, Harry stood and walked to his trunk, taking out a small jewel box. He flipped open the lid and checked to see that the emerald ring inside was still there. Then, a smile on his face and a spring in his step, he headed for the Great Hall.   
  
He had to have a private talk with Draco, and it looked like Hogsmeade would be seeing another Hogwarts wedding within the next year.   
  
=============  
  
A/N: Wedding ceremony language lifted wholesale from [ Here][1]. I know that the 1662 Book of Common Prayer would be a whole lot more authentic, but I like the whole sort of postmodern "support and uphold" thing, which is notably missing from the 1662 version. ;-)  
  
Also, for some reason, Eleanor is coming out looking like Amy Irving with red hair. ::shrugging::

   [1]: http://www.cofe.anglican.org/commonworship/marriage/marriage.html



	12. 12

Title: Unfogging the Future - Chapter 12  
Author: PepperjackCandy  
Archive : my hp_fanfic list, my writing at fanfiction.net  
Rating: PG-13  
Pairing: Draco/Harry, Snape/Bill Weasley  
Category: Romance   
  
Warning: Slash ahead. If the idea of boys snogging and/or talking about romance with boys offends you, turn back now, before it's too late.  
  
Disclaimer: You recognize it? It's J.K. Rowling's. Eleanor Weasley is my creation.  
  
Feedback: Always welcome, either by e-mail or using the review system at fanfiction.net.  
  
A/N: Just regular time from here on, I think. I suspect I'll wrap up PT Harry and Draco's story in a ficlet at some point in the future.  
  
============  
  
Harry threw himself into bed, exhausted both physically and mentally. But he was too keyed up to sleep, as echoes of the day kept reverberating through his mind.   
  
He finally stood and walked to the trunk at the end of his bed, opening it and taking out a school robe and his invisibility cloak, stopping to touch the soft fabric of the jade-green dress robe he'd worn at Bill and Snape's wedding. _And now I'm down to two school robes!_ He realized suddenly. _I'd better order a third. Between Draco and Neville, Potions is always hazardous to my school robes._  
  
Harry took one last look at his dress robe and took out a short scroll and a quill and ink, taking them down to the common room, where just enough candles were still burning for him to write a letter.  
  
He dipped his quill in the ink and began to write.  
  
_Dear Madam Malkin,  
  
One of my school robes has recently been_ he paused, _made unusable. As a result, I will be needing a new school robe._ Then he was seized by inspiration. _And is there any way the enclosed dress robe might be altered to fit Ronald Weasley? I enclose two Galleons to cover the cost of the new school robe and the alterations. If this is not sufficient, I will send more by return owl._  
  
Then, with a flourish of his quill, Harry signed the letter and rolled it up, then went back up to the seventh year boys' dormitory to fetch the dress robe and money from his footlocker.   
  
Minutes later, he was in the owlery, tying the bundled-up robe to Hedwig's leg. As he released her out the window, he heard a familiar, drawling voice from the shadows.  
  
"What're you doing out and about this late at night, Potter?"  
  
Harry sighed. "Just sending an owl, Malfoy."  
  
Draco stepped out of the shadows and into the room illuminated by the waning gibbous moon. "At this time of night? I thought all good little boys were in bed by now."  
  
"Shove off," Harry turned away from Draco and headed towards the stairs.  
  
"I'll tell Snape on you." Draco taunted.  
  
Harry snorted. "Like you have any more right to be here than I do."  
  
Draco held out a slip of parchment which clearly had Severus Snape's signature on it. "Actually, I do. I'm here on Snape's business."  
  
"What kind of business?"  
  
"None of yours, that's for certain."  
  
"Well, then. I'll just leave you to Snape's business." He headed for the stairs, then turned around again. "Actually, you could do me a favor?"  
  
Draco pulled an astonished face. "What could I, a mere, humble . . ."  
  
"Can the sarcasm, Malfoy," Harry interrupted him. "What do you know about Eleanor Weasley?"  
  
Draco's pale face paled even farther. "What do you know about Eleanor Weasley?"  
  
"Ron told me about her. She's the sister they don't talk about because . . ."  
  
"She got sorted into Slytherin."  
  
"Because she disowned them." Harry responded pointedly. "Her Slytherin friends convinced her that she deserved better."  
  
"And how do you know that she didn't?"  
  
Harry laughed softly, confidently. "You're not going to lure me into an argument about it, Malfoy. Just tell me. Do you know Eleanor Weasley or not?"  
  
Draco nodded. "I know people who know her."  
  
"Good. Can you get me in touch with her?"  
  
"Why do you want to talk to her?"  
  
"Does it matter?"   
  
Draco shrugged. "I suppose not."  
  
Harry nodded. "Just ask your contact to get me in touch with her. I'll ask you tomorrow after Potions how it went."  
  
Draco nodded. "All right."  
  
Adrenaline rushing through his system, Harry beat a hasty retreat. Once he was at the bottom of the stairs and headed back towards Gryffindor Tower, something someone once said to him came back to him. _Gryffindors do things that are either very, very brave, or very, very stupid, depending on how they work out._  
  
Harry laughed softly to himself. Looked like, this time, he had been very, very brave. 


End file.
